DARA BIRNBAUM — Performance Art and Video Installation, Tate Gallery, London, 1985

Exhibition poster, Performance Art and Video Installation. Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1985. Printed by Gavin Martin Ltd, London. Offset lithograph on paper, approx. 52 × 76 cm. Folded as issued.

Published for the exhibition at The Tate Gallery, Millbank, London SW1, 16 September – 6 October 1985. Artists: Dara Birnbaum, Rose English, Nan Hoover, Anthony Howell, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Hannah O’Shea, Silvia Ziranek. Also programme of film and video tapes.

The poster uses Nan Hoover’s light-based performance image as the visual carrier for a wider programme: one artist’s image becomes the public face of a multi-artist event. The design — dark ground, diagonal light trails, silhouetted figure — condenses the logic of video and performance into a single printed surface.

A strong institutional document from a moment when performance, video, and installation were being brought into the public language of the museum. The Tate’s decision to programme this work in 1985 placed it within a specific institutional frame: not the alternative space or the festival, but the national collection.

In The New Rare register, the poster operates as more than documentation. It is a printed support for temporary works — performances, screenings, installations, and actions that otherwise resist stable ownership. Authorship is dispersed between the listed artists, Hoover’s image, Tate’s publishing department, the printer, and the later collector who preserves the object after its use has expired. A museum notice becomes a display object. An event becomes paper. A programme becomes legible through circulation.

Condition: Good vintage condition. Folded, with visible horizontal and vertical fold lines, surface rubbing, handling marks, light edge wear, and corner creasing. Wear consistent with a large exhibition poster that has been stored, handled, and retained after its original display function.