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This screening is presented as part of UNTITLED, San Francisco
James Benning: 52 Films screens 12–6pm on Sunday, January 14 only.
Admissions to UNTITLED: $30 Adult / $20 Students and Seniors; tickets here
UNTITLED, Art is an international, curated art fair founded in 2012 that focuses on curatorial balance and integrity across all disciplines of contemporary art. Untitled, Art innovates the standard fair model by selecting a curatorial team to identify and curate a selection of galleries, artist-run exhibition spaces and non-profit institutions and organizations, in dialogue with an architecturally designed venue. UNTITLED, San Francisco will take place January 12—14, 2018 at the Palace of Fine Arts. Full details available here. San Francisco Cinematheque is proud to to be an Untitled participant for the second year in a row and thrilled to present James Benning’s 2015 series 52 Films, a highly ambitious suite of films created in response to an incredible personal challenge—to create one film per week for an entire year. We are proud that, while components of this series have been screened elsewhere, this screening represents the World Premiere of the the collective suite.
In keeping with Cinematheque’s exhibition history with UNTITLED, Benning’s 52 Films appropriately echoes the contemporary artistic concern of the archive...
“I never thought about an archive until later in life, maybe because there weren’t any books in my boyhood home or art on the walls. My mother did occasionally read a ladies magazine (as she would call them) and my father would read Conservation, a magazine for fishermen and hunters. I think he even saved the old copies for a while, which would have been the first archive I would have known, if I had known the word back then. But the real reason was a nomadic life. For 16 years (from the ages of 21–37) I moved each year, keeping only those things that could fit into the back of a Chevy pickup. There just wasn’t room for an archive.
“But maybe it was because I didn’t understand the real importance of an archive until I found Robert Smithson and his collected writings. It was then that I could see art not only in the object but also in all of those things surrounding that object, the things that help produce it. At that point for me the archive became the everything, later evidenced in Julie Ault’s Show & Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material, Jonas Mekas’ Museum, Ludwig (Cologne, Germany 2008) and Donald Judd’s materials room in Marfa, Texas, just to name a few.
“And then there’s the largest and fastest growing archive of all time, the Internet, and in particular YouTube. I started here playfully looking in different directions—an early performance by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, a Ché Guevara interview, an instructional video on glock maintenance—but soon the tide of information took over. The range in image quality and subject matter amazed me. I thought there was no longer a need for a camera. I could make whatever I wanted through appropriation. It became addictive and I began to make a film per week. I could be an ethnographic filmmaker, remake my own films or classics, construct things I never thought of making, etc. It was totally liberating. The result is 52 Films. (James Benning)
52 Films (2015) by James Benning
13 LAKES (May 6, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 8:43 minutes
1200 hp (July 22, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 6:45 minutes
American Dreams (November 2, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 3:21 minutes
Billy & Samuel (May 25, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 3:56 minutes|
CHILDHOOD (May 7, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:01 minutes
China Girl (May 21, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 0:46 minutes
Coming of Age (July 14, 2016) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 19:18 minutes
Consent (July 12, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 3:31 minutes
DREAM (May 21, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 0:53 minutes
found film #1 (May 6, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:04 minutes
found film #2 (May 9, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:34 minutes
Four Songs (January 17, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 9:12 minutes
Frida (October 25, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 7:23 minutes
FUCK ME (green) (April 1, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 16:33 minutes
FUCK ME (orange) (March 9, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 26:56 minutes
GODARD (November 4, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 0:57 minutes
GROPPI (October 30, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 3:56 minutes
HF (July 19, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 7:35 minutes
IKE (October 25, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 3:12 minutes
KIDS (October 28, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:05 minutes
KISS (July 20, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:31 minutes
Kodak (December 28, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 4:50 minutes
Launch Vehicle Failure (July 3, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 4:18 minutes
LOUISE (August 16, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 6:21 minutes
Lunesta (November 4, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:49 minutes
MANHOOD (July 16, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 5:56 minutes
Mary (October 7, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:42 minutes
Masters of War (August 12, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 13:04 minutes
METROPOLIS (July 20, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:48 minutes
mudd club (July 22, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:44 minutes
negative space (August 26, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 3:51 minutes
One Way Boogie Woogie (May 8, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 9:34 minutes
Palestine (October 19, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 4:24 minutes
perimeter (August 2, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:00 minutes
Psycho (April 26, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:36 minutes
PYONGYANK (September 1, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 12:52 minutes
RR (May 15, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 9:21 minutes
September 11th (October 24, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:26 minutes
Signs (March 14, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 18:11 minutes
Stemple Pass (April 30, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 4:21 minutes
Surfacing on the Rhine (May 6, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:19 minutes
TALKING HEADS (Nov 1, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 13:35 minutes
TEN SKIES (April 23, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 10:39 minutes
The PARTY (April 26, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 4:51 minutes
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (July 9, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 6:30 minutes
three acts (Sept 8, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 9:10 minutes
two moments (March 4, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:58 minutes
wavelength (July 17, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 10:28 minutes
WEEKEND (May 20, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 9:58 minutes
WORK (Oct 11, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 2:31 minutes
YOUTH WISH (Feb 4, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 4:31 minutes
Zéro de Conduite (July 23, 2015) by James Benning; digital video, color, sound, 1:25 minutes
[screening will commence promptly at 12:15pm and will screen in the order listed above]
Pictured: mudd club (2015) by James Benning