[NY]: Dara Birnbaum, 1978. 6 unbound sheets, 14 x 8-1/2 in., photo-reproduced in black to rectos only. Near fine, with mild toning to edges. Script for one of the earliest video installations by American video artist Dara Birnbaum (1946-2025, a feminist intervention on popular media, constructed of appropriated footage from the television show Laverne & Shirley. The work, featuring two-shots of Laverne and Shirley in conversation (the screen going white each time a man enters the frame), was presented as a multiroom installation, with a soundless subtitled version playing on a TV in one room, along a textless film projection of the same footage, and the soundtrack playing in an adjacent room. Presumably produced for the work's 1978 debut at The Kitchen, the script is printed on legal-size sheets in two columns, the left containing dialogue from the appropriated footage, the right notes on the actions and shots, along with Birnnbaum's analyses of same. Though OCLC locates no separate entries for this item, we do find a holding as part of the Robert C. Morgan Collection on Conceptual Art at Notre Dame, which confirms six sheets as the correct number. Several copies available.
