A trailblazer in media art and a 1969 CMU alum, Birnbaum leaves behind a legacy of critical innovation, iconic video works, and enduring influence on generations of artists.
Dara Birnbaum, a groundbreaking figure in media art and a 1969 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, passed away on May 2, 2025. Over a career spanning five decades, Birnbaum challenged the ideological frameworks of television and popular culture, producing some of the most iconic video works of the 20th century.
From early experimental edits to large-scale installations grappling with war, protest, and public address, Birnbaum continuously innovated in form and content. Whether confronting the gendered representations of women on television or probing the aesthetics of political spectacle, she developed a visual language that was both poetic and unsparingly direct. Her breakout piece, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978–79), used rapid-fire edits of the 1970s TV show to expose and subvert the visual language of power and gender. Her influence continues to shape how artists reckon with representation, narrative, and the politics of information.
Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1978–79
Birnbaum earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon and remained deeply connected to the university throughout her life. In 2017, the School of Art established the Dara Birnbaum Award in her honor, recognizing outstanding achievement in time-based and new media practices. Nine artists have since received the award: Cathleen Zhang (BFA ’25), Nandini Kuppa-Apte (BFA ’24), Ester Petukhova (BFA ’23), Vivian Noh (BFA ’22), Connie Ye (BCSA ’21), Lumi Barron (BFA ’20), Chloé Desaulles (BHA ’19), Zaria Howard (BHA ’18), and Lauren Valley (BFA ’17).
“Dara Birnbaum exemplifies the Carnegie Mellon ethos,” said Charlie White, Head of the School of Art. “Her legacy as a trailblazing artist and critical voice in media art is foundational to how we understand contemporary visual culture. We were honored to recognize her through the creation of the Dara Birnbaum Award, and we are proud to carry her influence forward through our students and alumni. She was bold, technically brilliant, and fearless in her vision. Her work changed the art world — and the world of ideas — for good.”
In 2022, Birnbaum debuted what would be her final new work at the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art. Journey: In the Shadow of the American Dream, a three-channel video installation commissioned by the Miller ICA, premiered as part of the solo exhibition “Dara Birnbaum: Journey,” curated by Elizabeth Chodos, then Miller ICA director and now founder and director of the forthcoming Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh. In the piece, Birnbaum reflected on her early life growing up amid postwar American idealism, blending digitized 16 mm family footage, layered sound design, and fragmented voiceover to explore how the promise of the American Dream was manufactured in the wake of World War II.
“Dara Birnbaum: Journey” at the Miller ICA, 2022
“Dara Birnbaum challenged us to become active viewers in a world that constantly asks us to passively absorb,” said Chodos. “Dara’s work has helped define not just the field of media art, but how we think critically about media itself. In giving us her final new work, Dara gifted our students and the public a profound experience of art’s ability to reframe personal history as cultural history. It was an honor to work with her and to witness her extraordinary clarity of vision.”
The exhibition coincided with “Dara Birnbaum: Reaction,” her first major U.S. retrospective at the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, and both shows were accompanied by a new publication, “Dara Birnbaum: Reaction,” featuring contributions from leading curators, critics, and scholars.
Most recently, Birnbaum’s 2024 exhibition “Four Works: Accountability” at Marian Goodman Gallery revisited powerful pieces from the 1990s, affirming the enduring urgency of her voice in today’s political and media landscape. Birnbaum’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, the National Portrait Gallery in London, Fondazione Prada in Milan, Tai Kwun in Hong Kong, and in three editions of Documenta. Major retrospectives have been held at the Hessel Museum of Art, Serralves in Portugal, and S.M.A.K. in Belgium. Among her many honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the United States Artists Fellowship, and the Maya Deren Award from the American Film Institute — the first ever awarded to a woman working in video.