Gretchen Bender

TV Text and Image (Donnell Library Center Version)

1990

Live television broadcast on twelve cathode-ray tube monitors, vinyl lettering, and shelves

Not on view

Bender conceived this iteration of her series TV Text and Image (1986–91) for the front window of the Donnell Library Center, located across Fifty-Third Street from MoMA. Each television set is tuned to a different channel and features a pointed phrase superimposed on its screen in vinyl lettering, creating a critical rejoinder to the flow of commercial programming. Continually updated, the work today may include “channels” from digital streaming platforms or internet TV. “I’ll mimic the media,” Bender noted, “but I’ll turn up the voltage on the currents so high that hopefully it will blast criticality out there.”

Gallery label from

Signals: How Video Transformed the World, March 5–July 8, 2023

Medium Live television broadcast on twelve cathode-ray tube monitors, vinyl lettering, and shelves
Dimensions Dimensions variable
Credit Gift of Jill and Peter Kraus
Object number 762.2022
Department Media and Performance

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