Sadie Benning

Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox musical artist Sadie T. Benning (born April 11, 1973) is an American artist, who has worked primarily in video, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and sound.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Benning creates experimental films and explores a variety of themes including surveillance, gender, ambiguity, transgression, play, intimacy, and identity. They became a known artist as a teenager, with their short films made with a PixelVision camera that have been described as "video diaries".

Benning was a co-founder and a former member of the American electronic rock band Le Tigre, from 1998 until 2001.

Early life

Sadie Benning was born April 11, 1973, in Madison, Wisconsin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":5">Template:Cite book</ref> Benning was raised by their mother in inner-city Milwaukee.<ref>Auer, James. "Film artist selected." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel January 5, 2000</ref> Their parents divorced before they were born, their father is film director James Benning.<ref name=":9">Template:Cite web</ref> Benning left high school at age 16 due to homophobia.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":7" />

They have identified as non-binary.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite web</ref>

Work

Early work

Benning began creating visual works at age 15, they started filming with the "toy" video camera they received as a Christmas gift from their father, the experimental filmmaker James Benning.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="TFJ4">Template:Cite journal</ref> Benning used a Fisher-Price PXL-2000 camera, also known as PixelVision, which created pixelated black and white video on standard audio cassette tapes.<ref name=":7" /> At first, Benning was standoffish to the PixelVision camera and is quoted as saying, "I thought, 'This is a piece of shit. It's black-and-white. It's for kids. He'd told me I was getting this surprise. I was expecting a camcorder."<ref name=":2" />

They made four short films and brought them to their father's film class he was teaching at Cal Arts, and they screened the films for the first time in front of a class.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":9" /> One of the students put one of the films in a film festival he was organizing.<ref name=":2" /> By the age of 19, they had shown their films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Sundance Institute, and at international film festivals.<ref name=":2" />

Themes

The majority of Benning's shorts combined performance, experimental narrative, handwriting, and cut-up music to explore, among other subjects, gender and sexuality.<ref name="TFJ4" />Template:Dead link Benning's work has been included in the Whitney Biennial on four occasions (1993, 2000, 2006), and they were the youngest artist included in the well-known and controversial 1993 Whitney Biennial.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite web</ref>

Benning's earlier videos – A New Year, Living Inside, Me and Rubyfruit, Jollies, and If Every Girl Had a Diary - used Benning's isolated surroundings and the effect this had on Benning as a focus for their theme. In Benning's earliest work, A New Year, Benning shied away from being in front of the camera, instead focusing on their surroundings – primarily the confines of their room and bedroom window – to portray their feelings of angst, confusion and alienation. "I don't talk, I'm not physically in it, it's all handwritten text, music; I wanted to substitute objects, things that were around me, to illustrate the events. I used objects in the closest proximity – the television, toys, my dog, whatever."<ref>Smith, Gavin. (1998). "Toy Stories" Film Comment Nov/Dec98, Vol. 34 Issue 6, p28, 5p</ref>

The themes of sexual identity and the challenges of growing up are repeated throughout the body of Benning's work, who self-identified as a lesbian in 2014.<ref name="Russell" /> Benning's video Me and Rubyfruit is referred to as their "first video to be presented as a coming-out narrative".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Benning uses pop culture, such as music, television or newspapers, to amplify their message while simultaneously parodying the same pop culture.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Benning also draws inspiration from images on television or in movies, observing: "They're totally fake and constructed to entertain and oppress at the same time – they're meaningless to women, and not just to gay women. I got started partly because I needed different images and I never wanted to wait for someone to do it for me".<ref name=":3" /> The use of a variety of media in their work gives insight to the viewer on how Benning has been mostly interacting with the world.<ref name="Russell">Template:Cite book</ref>

As their work has progressed, Benning has increasingly used images of their own body and voice.<ref name="Russell" /> In works such as If Every Girl Had a Diary, Benning uses the limitations of the PixelVision to get extreme closeups of their own face, eyes, fingers, and other extremities so that the focus is on sections of their face as they narrate their life and thoughts.<ref name="Russell" /> In 1998, the English Professor Mia Carter observed: "Benning's daring autoerotic and autobiographic videos, [their] ability to make the camera seem a part of [their] self, and extension of [their] body, invite the audience to know [them]."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Later work

Benning entered Bard College in 2013 and graduated two years later with a MFA degree, where they now work as faculty.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Their work is in various public museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),<ref name=":1" /> the Whitney Museum,<ref name=":4" /> the Smithsonian American Art Museum,<ref name=":10" /> and Albright-Knox Art Gallery,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> among others.

Music

In 1998, Benning co-founded Le Tigre, the feminist post-punk band whose members include ex-Bikini Kill singer/guitarist Kathleen Hanna and zinester Johanna Fateman. Benning left the band in 2001 and JD Samson joined Le Tigre after Benning's departure.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Exhibitions

Year	Exhibition name	Location	Notes
1990		Artists' Television Access, San Francisco, California	<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>
1991	Film in the Cities	St. Paul, Minnesota	<ref name=":0" />
1991	Fact/Fiction	Museum of Modern Art, New York	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
1991		Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, Illinois	<ref name=":0" />
1992		Art and Kultureproject, Vienna, Austria	<ref name=":0" />
1992	Videos on the Self	Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland	<ref name=":0" />
1992	Cinema in the 90s	Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York	<ref name=":0" />
1993	Whitney Biennial	Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York	<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" />
1993		British Film Institute, London, England	<ref name=":0" />
1993		Vera Vita Giola Gallery, Naples, Italy	<ref name=":0" />
1993		Galerie Crassi, Paris, France	<ref name=":0" />
1994	In and Around the Body	Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania
1994	Women's Self Portraits	University of California, Santa Cruz, and University of California, Berkeley
1994	Queer Screen	Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia	<ref name=":0" />
1995	World Wide Video Festival	Hague	<ref name=":0" />
1996	Scream and Scream Again: Film in Art	Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Oxford, England	<ref name=":0" />
1998	Up Close and Personal	Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	<ref name=":0" />
2007	Sadie Benning: Suspended Animation	Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
2007	Sadie Benning: Play Pause	Dia Center, New York City, New York	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Better source needed
2008	7th Gwangju Biennale	Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea
2012	VHS the Exhibition	Franklin Street Works, Stamford, Connecticut
2012	Raw/Cooked: Ulrike Müller	Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2013–2014	2013 Carnegie International	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2016	Off-Site Exhibition: A Shape That Stands Up	Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California
2017	Shared Eye	Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":7" />

Works

Film works by Benning

Dates	Name	Medium	Duration	Notes
1989	A New Year	black & white video, Pixelvision	5:57	This piece is included in the art collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art.<ref name=":10">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
1989	Me & Rubyfruit	black & white video, Pixelvision	5:31	This piece is included in the art collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
1989	Living Inside	black & white video, Pixelvision	5:06	This piece is included in the art collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1" />
1990	If Every Girl Had a Diary	black & white video, Pixelvison	8:56	This piece is included in the art collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
1990	Welcome to Normal	color video, Hi 8	20:00
1990	Jollies	black & white video, Pixelvision	11:18	This piece is included in the art collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1" />
1991	A Place Called Lovely	black & white video, Pixelvision	13:40
1992	It Wasn’t Love (But It Was Something)	black & white video, Pixelvision	19:06	<ref name=":9" />
1992	Girl Power	black & white video, Pixelvision	15:00
1995	The Judy Spots	color video, 16 mm film	12:30	The film is produced by Elisabeth Subrin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This piece is in the art collection at the Museum of Modern Art.<ref name=":1" />
1995	German Song	black & white video, Super 8 film	6:00	Made in collaboration with Come. This piece is in the art collection at the Museum of Modern Art.<ref name=":1" />
1998	Flat Is Beautiful	black & white video, Pixelvision, 16mm film, and Super 8 film	56:00	Video is co-starring Mark Ewert. This piece is in the art collection at the Museum of Modern Art.<ref name=":1" />
1998	Aerobicide	video, color	4:00	Video recorded for the track of the same name, on the Julie Ruin album.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2006	Play Pause	two channel video installation from hard drive, color digital video/ drawings on paper	29:21	Directed by Sadie Benning in collaboration with Solveig Nelson, drawings and sound by Sadie Benning.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Influenced by the book, Ulysses by James Joyce.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This piece is included in the art collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art.<ref name=":4" />

Installation and fine art work by Benning

Year	Name	Medium	Notes
1999	Le Tigre Slide Show	slide installation projected during Le Tigre music performances, 40:00, drawings & color slides
2003	The Baby	installation, 5:40, color digital video/ drawings on paper
2003	One Liner	installation, 5:07, b&w video/ Pixelvision
2013	Locating Center	installation of abstract paintings	This work was commissioned by the Carnegie Museum of Art, for the 2013 Carnegie International.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Better source needed

Music work by Benning

Year	Name	Type	Notes
1999	Le Tigre	compact disc and vinyl	Music album recorded with Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman.

Awards, recognition, and honors

In 1991, the first article about Benning's work, written by Ellen Spiro, appeared in the national gay magazine The Advocate.<ref>Spiro, Ellen. (1991). "Shooting Star: Teenage Video Maker Sadie Benning Attracts a Youthful Audience." Advocate March 26, 1991.</ref> In 2004, Bill Horrigan curated a retrospective of Benning's works on video. In 2009, Chloe Hope Johnson contributed a chapter in the book There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series) entitled Becoming-Grrrl The Voice and Videos of Sadie Benning.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Benning has received grants and fellowships from Guggenheim Fellowship (2005) by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,<ref name=":8">Template:Cite book</ref> Rockefeller Foundation grant (1992),<ref name=":9" /> Andrea Frank Foundation, and National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Awards include the Wexner Center Residency Award in Media Arts (2003–2004, which was extended to 2006),<ref name=":8" /> National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture Merit Award, Grande video Kunst Award, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Circle Award.

Their videos are distributed by Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Publications

• Template:Cite book

External links

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• Sadie Benning in the Video Data Bank.
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Sadie Benning by Lia Gangitano Template:Webarchive Bomb