Produced for an Artbreak segment on the MTV Network, this dynamic “thirty-second spot” presents a short history of animation according to the representation of women, that spans the cell imagery of Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell to the digital televisual effects.
At this time many artists were pushing their work into mainstream media, this was around the same time that Andy Warhol had his own MTV show. Interested in certain similarities between her work and music videos, the network asked Birnbaum to create an “art break,” a 30-second spot to air during a commercial break. Birnbaum recalled that, when MTV approached her, the art critic Benjamin Buchloh asked, “Are you crazy? Why are you entering a supermarket of imagery? Isn’t that like entering the enemy’s domain?” She forged ahead anyway, creating a work that involved the MTV logo, a Max Fleischer cartoon, and blurred images of a female animator. It showed at the time on airwaves shared with antic music videos by the likes of U2, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Bon Jovi.
Shown at the art KARLSRUHE 2024.