Sadie Benning Videoworks: Volume 1

A compilation of five of Sadie Benning’s early works. In Jollies, Benning gives a chronology of her crushes and kisses, tracing the development of her nascent sexuality. Addressing the camera with an air of seduction and romance, Benning allows the viewer a sense of her anxiety and delight as she comes to realize her lesbian identity. In If Every Girl Had a Diary, Benning trains her pixelvision camera on herself and her room, searching for a sense of identity and respect as a woman and a lesbian. Acting alternately as a confessor and accuser, the camera here captures Benning’s anger and frustration at feeling trapped by social prejudices. Me and Rubyfruit is based on a novel by Rita Mae Brown. This tape chronicles the enchantment of teenage lesbian love. Recorded against a backdrop of pornographic images and phone sex ads, Benning portrays the innocence of female romance, and the taboo prospect of female marriage.

When she was 16, Benning stopped going to high school for three weeks and stayed inside with her camera, her TV set, and a pile of dirty laundry. Living Inside mirrors her psyche during this time. With the image breaking up between edits, the rough quality of this early tape captures Benning’s sense of isolation and sadness, her retreat from the world. As such, Living Inside is the confession of a chronic outsider. In A New Year, a version of the teenage diary, Benning places her feelings of confusion and depression alongside grisly tales of tabloid headlines and brutal events in her neighborhood. The difficulty of finding a positive identity for oneself in a world filled with violence is starkly revealed by Benning’s youthful but already despairing voice.