Sadie
Benning

Born in 1973 in Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Lives and works in New York, United States

Sadie Benning started making experimental videos as a teenager in 1988. The low-fi black and white videos explored aspects of identity, language and memory. Improvising with materials that were immediately available at the time, Benning constructed moving images from found objects, drawings, text, performance and personally shot footage. The form, content and poetics explored in these earlier video works has expanded over the past two decades, as the artist continues to wrestle with evolving, political, conceptual and material questions.

More recently, Benning has produced wall-mounted works that trouble the categories of painting, drawing and sculpture. These works begin with a tracing on a single panel of wood. The component parts of the image are cut-out, layers of aqua-resin are applied to these forms, which are then sanded and molded, and finally fit back together to form the final composition. When assembled, the gaps between the pieces becomes a conceptual space of personal projection: « There is a space between the panels that is the third space I’m talking about – the place where you have to picture something else. You have to imagine the line that is missing. It’s just air, and shadow. »




ARTWORKS

Where? They, Their, There 2023 Acrylic gouache on fabric 38 x 29,20 cm	Trees in Water 2023 Acrylic gouache on fabric 38 x 29,20 cm	Sky Unawares 2013 Acrylic gouache on fabric 38 x 29,20 cm
The Hustle 2023 Acrylic gouache on fabric 38 x 29,20 cm	Momentous 2023 Acrylic gouache on fabric 38 x 29,20 cm	Calendar Man 2023 Acrylic gouache on fabric 38 x 29,20 cm
Untitled (cut-out) 2022 Collage, acrylic gouache on paper 38 x 30,5 cm	Untitled (cut-out) 2022 Collage, acrylic gouache on paper 38 x 30,5 cm	Untitled (cut-out) 2022 Framed collage, acrylic gouache on paper 51 x 40 cm
Blow-up #30 2018 Wood, aqua resin, casein, and acrylic gouache 149,9 x 103,5 cm	Zebra 2016 Medite, aqua resin, casein and acrylic, found object, photographs, digital prints 124,4 x 124,4 x 10,5 cm	Truck 2016 Medite, aqua resin, casein and acrylic, found object, photographs, digital prints 177,8 x 116,8 x 14,5 cm
Building 2016 Medite, aqua resin, casein and acrylic, found objects, photographs, digital print 81,5 x 148,5 x 17 cm	Happenings 2016 Medite, aqua resin, casein and acrylic, photographs, digital print 111.7 x 73.6 x 4 cm	X 2016 Medite, aqua resin, casein and acrylic 84 x 170 cm
EXHIBITIONS

Cigarette immatérielle Air de Paris, Romainville 2023	Sleep Rock Camden Art Centre, London 2018	Shared Eye Kunsthalle Basel 2017
L'oeil de l'esprit Air de Paris, Paris 2016