James Benning

James Benning's films are among the most fascinating works in American cinema. He explores the relationship between image, text and sound while paying expansive attention to the "vernacular landscapes" of American life. This volume traces Benning’s artistic career as well as his biographical journey through the U.S., from Wisconsin to the East Coast to Southern California.

With contributions by James Benning, Sharon Lockhart, Allan Sekula, Dick Hebdige, Scott MacDonald, Volker Pantenburg, Nils Plath, Michael Pisaro, Amanda Yates, Sadie Benning, Julie Ault, Claudia Slanar and Barbara Pichler.

"With a multitude of stylistic approaches, the volume is an ideal synopsis of Benning's exceptional career, which itself stands tall as a structuralist representation of the United States of America, and the American landscape in particular. From fellow traveller Sharon Lockhart's perfect photo essay of Benning's Milwaukee-based brewery beer bottle collection, to his daughter Sadie's personal reflection, to Nils Plath's Marxist analysis of a single scene from Sogobi of a container ship, the book drives around Benning's career like the director navigates his United States; it is both idiosyncratic and indispensable." (Cinema Scope)

"This is a measured, copiously-illustrated text that combines the scholarly and analytical with the anecdotal and playful as it navigates the reader through Benning's dauntingly large work." (Neil Young, KINO!)

James Benning
Edited by Barbara Pichler and Claudia Slanar.
FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen Vol. 6
Vienna 2007. 264 pages, with numerous illustrations in color and b/w
In English
ISBN 978-3-901644-23-8