Sadie Benning
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When she was fifteen Sadie Benning’s father gave her a kiddie PixelVision camera, a device that recorded grainy black-and-white video on standard audio cassettes. She promptly made showstopper single-channel videos—including Me and Rubyfruit and Jollies. The short videos captured her feelings of angst, confusion and alienation, as she was coming out in middle America. Benning was the first sixteen-year-old to show her work at MoMA. As she continued to make grainy narrative videos, she joined the feminist post-punk band, Le Tigre. Benning slowly moved on to installation, performance, drawing, painting, and then to sculpture. Her practice challenges traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, and probes intimate subjects that are close to her personal life.
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When she was fifteen Sadie Benning’s father gave her a kiddie PixelVision camera, a device that recorded grainy black-and-white video on standard audio cassettes. She promptly made showstopper single-channel videos—including Me and Rubyfruit and Jollies. The short videos captured her feelings of angst, confusion and alienation, as she was coming out in middle America. Benning was the first sixteen-year-old to show her work at MoMA. As she continued to make grainy narrative videos, she joined the feminist post-punk band, Le Tigre. Benning slowly moved on to installation, performance, drawing, painting, and then to sculpture. Her practice challenges traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, and probes intimate subjects that are close to her personal life.