USA 1980, video, col, sound, 4:18 min
- realized by:
- Dara Birnbaum
- cast&crew:
- editing:
- Dave Pentecost, Sergio Valente
- music:
- Burt Bacharach, Clarice Taylor, Kelvyn Bell
- assistance:
- John Sanborn
- available copies:
- Video Data Bank:
- available for rent
- Electronic Arts Intermix - EAI:
- available for rent
- LUX:
- available for rent
- synopsis: Copyright Electronic Arts Intermix, New York. See the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work
- Commissioned by Remy Martin for a public exhibition in Grand Central Station in New York, Remy/Grand Central is an advertisement with a deconstructive twist. In a syncopated collage of appropriated footage (including a TV commercial for Sergio Valente jeans) and a young woman drinking Remy on a commuter train platform, Birnbaum calls attention to how mass media advertising uses a woman's body as a vehicle for selling products. In a stylized pastiche that she terms "a snack-en-route with a pretty girl, animated trains, updated Bacharach muzak (Brazilian style), and pouring Remy," Birnbaum turns the tables on the media's use of woman as commodity.
- synopsis: Video Data Bank, Chicago
- In a piece commissioned by Remy Martin, Birnbaum relies heavily on the syntax of commercial advertising, using the body, gestures and glances of a heavily made-up woman to create a scene of glamour and romance, while slipping in a disparaging narrative that touches on the actual use and abuse of Remy Martin's product. Birnbaum sets up a typical commercial, but then allows the fictive narrative to intrude too far, upsetting the advertised fantasy with a dose of unpleasant reality. Burt Bacarach's peppy song intones, "Trains and boats and planes took you away from me,... I pray they bring you back," while the beautiful model stands at a railroad crossing, the bottle lifted to her lips, guzzling cognac.
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