James Benning Movies

James Benning’s PLACE is a multi-part work that deepens the artist’s longstanding engagement with marginalized artists and creators. Over...

an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA

signs is a sobering continuation of Benning’s career-long interest with the written word as image, text as vision: a silent parade of stills...

One-hour-documentation of James Benning's participation in the Moving Billboard project.

Presented on a computer, "Pascal's Lemma" features mathematics (diagrams, equations, questions), biographical information about Blaise Pascal, and...

[...] And then there’s the largest and fastest growing archive of all time, the Internet, and in particular YouTube. I started here playfully...

A filmed homage to Sam Shepard, in a single fixed frame where the treetops sway under a moving cloud cover. Orchestrated by the camera in this forest...

Benning's 18-minute study of moonfall in the morning sky-- A close cousin to his film "two moons". A lovely rendition of 'Moon River' accompanies the...

Short by James Benning.

Last week I made a film of 49 of my T-shirts called Fresh Air. It was to be purely structural. For sound I recorded (in sync) the quiet ambience of...

In James Benning’s film Concord Woods (2014), we watch a replica of Henry David Thoreau’s famous cabin at Walden Pond. The cabin is first...

A film by James Benning

A short film about femininity

A short film about masculinity

Three-channel HD video (color/sound), 18 minutes

Except for some additional ambience, the entire sound track of this film has been taken (without permission) from: Ernesto Che Guevara, the Bolivian...

Stills from a trip in Cuba.

At Northwestern University, where he teaches at the time, Benning gives a short interview to some student filmmakers. He then uses this material to...

Twenty-four hours in the life of a factory worker.

Twenty-two minute tracking shot through campgrounds in Southern Wisconsin