Sadie Benning

Sadie Benning, April 11, 1973, is a video maker, visual artist, and musician.

She first made her name in the early 1990s as a teenage video maker from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [Auer, James. "Film artist selected." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel January 5, 2000] Raised by her mother in inner-city Milwaukee, Benning left school at age 16, primarily due to the homophobia she experienced. [Hillstrom, Kevin (1999). "Benning, Sadie: American Video Artist." "Contemporary Women Artists" Detroit: St. James Press.] Her earliest works, made from the time she was 15, were shot with the Fisher-Price Pixelvision camera, which recorded pixelated, black and white video images onto standard audio cassettes. The majority of her shorts combined performance, experimental narrative, handwriting, and cut-up music to explore, among other subjects, gender and sexuality. Her work was twice included in the Whitney Biennial.

Later in the decade, she co-founded Le Tigre, the feminist post-punk band whose members include ex-Bikini Kill singer/guitarist Kathleen Hanna and zinester Johanna Fateman. She has since left the band.

Her father is experimental filmmaker James Benning.

In 2004, Bill Horrigan curated a retrospective of her works on video. In 2006, in collaboration with Solveig Nelson, she created "Play Pause" - a two-screen projected video installation. It was debuted at the Wexner in 2007 as part of the exhibition, "Sadie Benning: Suspended Animation." In September 2007, "Play Pause" was exhibited at the Dia Center in NYC. [cite web|url=http://www.diacenter.org/prg/special/benning/|title=Sadie Benning: Play Pause, 2006|publisher=Dia Art Foundation|accessdate=2007-12-19] Concurrent with the Dia installation, the collaboratively run Orchard Gallery exhibited her abstract drawings, video installation, wall sculptures, and "play/pause" records in the solo show, "Form of...a waterfall." [cite web|url=http://orchard47.org/testshow.php?name=Form%20of%20a%20waterfall.%20Sadie%20Benning|title=Form of a waterfall. Sadie Benning|accessdate=2007-12-19|publisher=Orchard47] Two works from this exhibition were included in the 2007 White Columns Annual. [cite web|url=http://www.whitecolumns.org/view.html?type=exhibitions&id=338|title=Looking Back: The White Columns Annual|publisher=White Columns|accessdate=2007-12-19] Recent exhibitions include Play Pause, Power Plant Gallery (2008) and 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008).

Benning has received grants and fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation, Andrea Frank Foundation, National Endowment of the Arts, and Rockefeller Foundation. Awards include Wexner Center Residency Award in Media Arts, National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture Merit Award, Grande video Kunst Award, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Circle Award. She received her M.F.A. from Bard College. Her videos are distributed by Video Data Bank, www.videodatabank.org.

Works

2006: "Play Pause" (29:21, two channel video installation from hard drive, color digital video/ drawings on paper). Directed by Sadie Benning in collaboration with Solveig Nelson, Drawings and Sound by Sadie Benning

2003: "One Liner" (5:07, installation, b&w video/ Pixelvision)

2003: "The Baby" (5:40, installation, color digital video/ drawings on paper)

1999: "Le Tigre Slide Show" (slide installation projected during Le Tigre performances, 40:00, drawings & color slides)

1999: "Le Tigre", recorded with Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman (vinyl & cd)

1998: "Flat is Beautiful" (56:00, black & white video/ Pixelvision, 16mm, and Super 8), co-starring Mark Ewart

1995: "German Song", collaboration with Come (6:00, black & white video/ Super 8 film)

1995: "The Judy Spots" (12:30, color video/ 16 mm film), produced by Elisabeth Subrin

1992: "Girl Power" (15:00, black & white video/ Pixelvision)

1992: "It Wasn’t Love" (19:06, black & white video/ Pixelvision)

1991: "A Place Called Lovely" (13:40, black & white video/ Pixelvision)

1990: "Jollies" (11:18, black & white video/ Pixelvision)

1990: "Welcome to Normal" (20:00, color video/ Hi 8)

1990: "If Every Girl Had a Diary" (8:56, black & white video/ Pixelvison)

1989: "Living Inside" (5:06, black & white video/ Pixelvision)

1989: "Me & Rubyfruit" (5:31, black & white video/ Pixelvision);

1989: "A New Year" (5:57, black & white video/ Pixelvision)

External links

*imdb name|id=0072162|name=Sadie Benning
* [http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?BENNINGS Sadie Benning] in the [http://www.vdb.org/ Video Data Bank] .
* [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/benning.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database]

References