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Oral History Interview with Dara Birnbaum, 2017 May 30-31

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Oral history interview with Dara Birnbaum, 2017 May 30-31 Funded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Dara Birnbaum on May 30 and 31, 2017. The interview took place at Birnbaum's studio in New York, NY, and was conducted by Linda Yablonsky for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This transcript has been reviewed by Linda Yablonsky and Dara Birnbaum, and lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview LINDA YABLONSKY: This is Linda Yablonsky interviewing the artist Dara Birnbaum in her home studio in New York City—it is May 30, 2017—for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Hi, Dara. DARA BIRNBAUM: Hi. LINDA YABLONSKY: Thank you for doing this. I’ve always been interested in your work, and this is quite a great opportunity for me. You were born in 1946, so that makes you 71 now? DARA BIRNBAUM: I’m 70. LINDA YABLONSKY: Seventy? DARA BIRNBAUM: Yeah. [Laughs.] LINDA YABLONSKY: Okay, so we are more or less the same age. So we have something of a shared history, but you grew up in New York City, is that right? DARA BIRNBAUM: Yes, I did. LINDA YABLONSKY: In what kind of family? I mean, did you have siblings? DARA BIRNBAUM: I have one sibling. I have a brother. LINDA YABLONSKY: Older or younger? DARA BIRNBAUM: He is younger, but he acts older. [They laugh.] LINDA YABLONSKY: What does that mean? [They laugh.] DARA BIRNBAUM: That’s what I always say about him. He is six and a half years younger, and he acts as if he’s the older one. LINDA YABLONSKY: Because he bossed you around when you were kids? DARA BIRNBAUM: No, because he is very controlled, in a way, and acts the adult all the time. [They laugh.] LINDA YABLONSKY: What about your parents? DARA BIRNBAUM: Well, my father—the heritage is that his parents came from Austria. Either Vienna, he always said, directly, or that vicinity, and they came over rather young. LINDA YABLONSKY: So before the war? DARA BIRNBAUM: Oh, yeah, before the war. And my father was one of [00:02:00] the first to be born here in New York, in the Bronx. The family seemed to be dirt poor, and I think that had a great effect on my father. And my mother’s family seemingly came from Russia, around Leningrad, and she was born here in New Jersey. They seemed to do a little bit better than the kind of utter poverty of my father and— LINDA YABLONSKY: What did your father do for work? DARA BIRNBAUM: My father was an architect. LINDA YABLONSKY: Oh, really? DARA BIRNBAUM: Yes. LINDA YABLONSKY: And you— DARA BIRNBAUM: And I— LINDA YABLONSKY: —began to follow in his footsteps. DARA BIRNBAUM: I did. Well, what I did is, I was so young when I graduated high school—relatively young, let’s say 16, and he— LINDA YABLONSKY: Is that because you’re super smart? DARA BIRNBAUM: I wanted to get through as fast as I could [they laugh], so I skipped two different grades along the way. My father was kind of against it, because he thought I won’t mature in a certain way and be ready, you know, to go away. And we were a very protective family. LINDA YABLONSKY: Of each other you mean? DARA BIRNBAUM: They were of me, let’s say. You know, growing up rather strict rather than loose. Like, be good; don’t kiss boys [laughs]. LINDA YABLONSKY: What did you do for fun? You grew up in New York City. The world is at your feet. DARA BIRNBAUM: We grew up in Queens. I went to the same high school as the Ramones and— LINDA YABLONSKY: But earlier? DARA BIRNBAUM: Earlier, and [00:04:00] Garfunkel, Simon and Garfunkel. Maybe—God knows when. And for fun we—I don’t know, I think I was a little bit of a tomboy maybe. LINDA YABLONSKY: Did you watch TV? DARA BIRNBAUM: I did watch TV. I did. I never thought I would be doing work about TV, but I did watch TV. LINDA YABLONSKY: What TV? TV was mostly live when we were children, so different than now. DARA BIRNBAUM: Yeah. Not all of it. LINDA YABLONSKY: Not all of it, but mostly, in the beginning. I mean, people called it the Golden Age of Television, although now they call this the Golden Age of Television, but whatever. [Laughs.] DARA BIRNBAUM: Yes. LINDA YABLONSKY: We wouldn’t have gotten to now without then. So did you have favorite shows? DARA BIRNBAUM: Well, while you’re talking, I’m remembering that—I did, I did. When I was about four, I did like Howdy Doody​. LINDA YABLONSKY: Yes. DARA BIRNBAUM: And actually, when you’re talking about live television, there were only a few shows like that, and in the neighborhood—let’s say that we were around five, seven years old—we would watch and realize it was almost like a window onto something, because one time we had a neighbor go onto the show. LINDA YABLONSKY: Onto Howdy Doody? DARA BIRNBAUM: Onto Howdy Doody, in the Peanut Gallery, and we were ecstatic and jealous, our little group, you know, and asked our parents if we could get on, and actually I made it onto the Peanut Gallery. LINDA YABLONSKY: You did? DARA BIRNBAUM: Yeah. [They laugh.] LINDA YABLONSKY: I’m so jealous! [Laughs.] I used to watch that show religiously. DARA BIRNBAUM: So I think that was a real breakthrough, you know, of watching—and actually now I’m thinking, I loved Winky Dink, [00:06:00] I think. LINDA YABLONSKY: Oh, yeah, Winky Dink. You had to draw on the screen. DARA BIRNBAUM: Is that the one where you draw? I loved that. LINDA YABLONSKY: Yeah. [Laughs.] DARA BIRNBAUM: I really loved that. LINDA YABLONSKY: That was brilliant, actually. DARA BIRNBAUM: And then my father loved Martin—who would be Dean Martin, not Steve Martin—who drank a lot, Dean Martin. LINDA YABLONSKY: Oh. DARA BIRNBAUM: And I didn’t like that he liked that. That, I didn’t like, but he would watch it. And I loved watching—with my parents—they’d let me stay up to watch Alfred Hitchcock. And I’d drive them nuts—my father nuts—because I’d always say, "What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen?" And so he taught me—like he said, "Relax, it’s going to be solved. There’s only 10 minutes to go, so they’re going to resolve it." So I remember that. I did like cowboy programs a lot, like— LINDA YABLONSKY: The Lone Ranger? DARA BIRNBAUM: —The Long Ranger and— LINDA YABLONSKY: Long John Silver, Lone Ranger. DARA BIRNBAUM: Thank you. [They laugh.] Lone Ranger. I feel like a lone ranger. And Rogers—Dale Evans and — LINDA YABLONSKY: Oh, yeah, Roy Rogers. DARA BIRNBAUM: —Roy Rogers. And then, to be very open and honest, my parents had trouble over the years. There was a lot of fighting in our home. LINDA YABLONSKY: Oh. DARA BIRNBAUM: And so if you want me to be openly honest, around the age of four was a kind of pivotal spot of trouble, I guess. I was too young to really know, but what I do know is my mother asked, "If you wanted another father, who would he be?" LINDA YABLONSKY: Wow. DARA BIRNBAUM: "Who would he be?" and I said, "Roy Rogers, but I prefer he not bring Dale." [They laugh.] LINDA YABLONSKY: Did they [00:08:00] divorce? DARA BIRNBAUM: They went through divorce about six times and then got back together again. LINDA YABLONSKY: But you did watch TV as a family, so it— DARA BIRNBAUM: Yeah. LINDA YABLONSKY: —was somewhat a shared experience. Not the kids' shows, I’d imagine. DARA BIRNBAUM: No, I think that was—but like the babysitter, you know. LINDA YABLONSKY: Yes. DARA BIRNBAUM: And it was very effective. LINDA YABLONSKY: Effective? DARA BIRNBAUM: In the way of Winky Dink or something; I thought that was a great show, is what you are saying. LINDA YABLONSKY: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] DARA BIRNBAUM: It was something to learn from and to interact with early on. LINDA YABLONSKY: It was kind of an Etch-a-Sketch thing. DARA BIRNBAUM: Yes. LINDA YABLONSKY: On some kind of piece of celluloid or something. Plastic that attaches. You could draw and erase. DARA BIRNBAUM: Yes, and I remember one time they had you draw, like, the steering wheel of a car, and they’d show you how you’re going down the street. You’d have the steering wheel. It was a very good show. LINDA YABLONSKY: Did you go to museums, or did you have any art education when you were a kid? DARA BIRNBAUM: Yeah. I loved going to—basically, I would say the Met. I grew up in Forest Hills and Rego Park, and a little in Manhattan, and one of my favorite things would be to try to finally get to the public library. That was a big thing for me. And the other thing was— LINDA YABLONSKY: —the Manhattan public library? DARA BIRNBAUM: Yeah, the Manhattan one.
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