Installed throughout the artist’s home at 30758 San Martinez Road, Val Verde, California, James Benning’s ALABAMA (2017- 2022) is a multi-faceted work exploring the state of Alabama and its pivotal role in American history, societal dynamics, civil rights and art history.
In ALABAMA, a selection of archival objects, works on paper, photography, painting, textile work and a film installation trace narratives of self-determination amidst imposed power dynamics. The events that it outlines unfold over centuries, beginning with the region’s occupation by white settlers and the expulsion of the land’s native peoples, continuing through the subjugation of Black populations, and extending to the area’s present-day social climate. ALABAMA’s point of departure is Benning’s continued engagement with so-called “outsider artists” - self-taught artists, often from marginalized communities. In the mid 2000s, Benning endeavored to expand his filmmaking practice to include painting, and first did so by creating copies of these artists’ works based on reproductions found in catalogs. Tracing the origins of these artists would time and again lead Benning back to Alabama, prompting him to assemble artifacts and create pieces that broadened his focus to the history and significance of the state and its inhabitants, ultimately shaping a record of activism, expression, resistance, homage, strife and reverence. The presentation’s domestic setting locates Benning’s work in a context that suggests a happenstance encounter and intimates the ongoing relevance and living nature of the project’s pieces and their legacies. Displayed non-chronologically throughout the home’s rooms, amidst the trappings of the artist’s own life, the work complicates the linear narratives often assigned to history, highlighting the delicate intricacies embedded within the work’s component parts. Consisting of both found and reproduced elements, ALABAMA points to Benning’s own nuanced deconstruction of the past and brings into question hierarchies dictated by authenticity. Shown in Val Verde, geographically removed from traditional exhibition spaces, Benning conflates notions of public and private by inviting visitors to a deeply personal encounter.
James Benning (b. 1942) has created over 30 feature-length films in the past 50 years. Beginning his experimental film practice in the 1970s, Benning developed a distinct visual language associated with long, real-time, single-shot frames, and the use of landscape to convey deeper themes. Exploring topics of politics, marginalization of peoples, ecology and technology, Benning often returns to the grand narratives of the US and their hidden undersides. In recent decades, his practice has expanded to include photography, printmaking and large-scale installation work that continue and complement his filmic practice.
