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Sadie Benning

Green God

Opening at Mary Boone: Thursday, April 28, 5–8pm; Closing at Callicoon Fine Arts: Friday, July 29, 6–8pm

April 28 – July 29, 2016

A photograph of the exterior of the gallery from the sidewalk, where the neon sign "Green God" is visible.
A photograph of the left wall of the gallery that includes two large paintings: one of airplanes, the other of "Green God"
A photograph of the gallery that includes 3 large paintings: 2 horizontal, one vertical.
A photograph of the back quadrant of the gallery, which includes one large painting on the back wall that is predominantly white, a smaller work at right, and an excerpt in the foreground at right.
A photograph of two paintings on the right wall of the gallery: "Nature" on the left, and "Crucifixion" on the right.
A photograph of the back gallery which includes 3 paintings, one on each wall. There is a red work on the left, 'Sunset' on the back wall, and 'Mic' on the right wall.
A photograph of the installation at Mary Boone Gallery, with 'Icons' in the foreground at right and another work further in the background.
A photograph of two large works on canvas at Mary Boone Gallery
A photograph of three mixed media works installed at Mary Boone Gallery.
A photograph of 3 works installed at Mary Boone Gallery.
A photograph of several works installed in a single row, touching, at Mary Boone Gallery.
A photograph of several works installed in a single row, touching, at Mary Boone Gallery. There are also two works on the right-side wall installed.
A photograph of a painting that has a red background and includes 4 rows of 10-14 figures—some are recognizable as idols like Buddha, King Kong, or an orthodox cross but others are more abstract.
A photograph of an artwork that is mostly black, with a photograph of a figure in the center. There seems to be light surrounding the figure, and a small red square beneath it. There is some purple in near the top of the piece that is painted and collaged on.
A photograph of a red painting that has lines squiggling throughout, making it appear like a visualization of intestines or sausage links.
A photograph of an artwork that has a large red semi-circle emerging from the top center. On the bottom there is a surface that includes blue, yellow, orange, and black sections, appearing like the ocean with the red sunset reflecting off of it.
A photograph of a white artwork that has a microphone emerging from the bottom-right. On the left half, there is a zig-zag that defines a furry shape or loudness.
A photograph of an artwork with a black background. In white are small blobs throughout, and there are small areas of red that appear like splotches of blood.
A gray background that upon it has a face. There are yellow eyebrows, green eyes, a blue triangle nose, and an open mouth with the tongue out and 3 teeth on the top register. It is very cartoonish.
A photograph of a mixed media artwork that has a photograph of citrus fruit in the background, and blobs of red, pink, orange, and yellow on top of it. There are also small collaged pieces of paper that depict artworks.
A photograph of a predominantly white surface that has 3 collage elements upon it that depict artworks (2 landscapes, 1 set of praying hands). There are circles carved into the surface that appear like soap suds in cartoon-form.
A photograph of a predominantly red surface with a blue figure shape in the center, arms outstretched, with a triangular bottom section. There are black lines that define a cross behind the figure.
A photograph of a photo-collage upon a black background There is a black garbage bag, tied-up, at right with a sculpture of an owl on top of it. At left is a photo of a stuffed animal on cardboard, and another icon to the left of it.
A photograph of a painting that has a blue background and yellow blobs upon it. In a central horizontal section, there is a white background with smaller green blobs upon it. To the right of that section of green/white is a cut-out image of a pilgrim with a glass of wine in their hand.
A photograph of a painting that summons thoughts of a cartoon snow man: black eyes and a triangular orange nose, a dark blue and pink area that may be clothing. There is a purple hat atop a set of teal eyebrows that span the entire width of the canvas.
A photograph of a painting with a white background. There are rudimentary "+" that signify airplanes. Upon each plane's wing is a square that summons other artworks throughout art history.

Press Release

Opening reception: Thursday, April 28th, 5 - 7 pm, at Mary Boone Gallery, 745 Fifth Avenue

Closing reception: Friday, July 29th, 6 - 8pm, at Callicoon Fine Arts 

Callicoon Fine Arts is very pleased to present Green God, an exhibition by Sadie Benning in collaboration with Mary Boone Gallery ,where the show continues at 745 5th Ave, curated by Piper Marshall.  

In Green God, as in previous exhibitions by Benning, themes are built upon associations between form and content. The works incorporate aspects of painting, sculpture and photography. The artist shifts between mediums as a way of confronting the artificiality of the distinctions between them while also exploring the relationships inherent in the seemingly disparate parts.  

The multiple significations of color, specifically green (as nature, as a color of money, as symbol of greed and envy), are grounded both within the materiality of the works and in their attendant conceptual concerns. Since green can hold contradictory significations, it parallels the contradictions that are inherent in belief systems, opposite forces that ultimately uphold power. But the exhibition attempts a way out of this trap by simply pointing at the problem, and inserting it into the open and divided experiential field of the exhibition.  

Painting itself occupies the place of the fetish in Airplane Painting. A series of five hand-painted abstractions, intimately scaled “real” paintings on panels, are inserted into the larger jigsawed work representing an equal number of somewhat uniform airplane shapes in black, moving across the large white negative ground. Each "real" painting is carried on the wing of a plane, animating the mechanical modes of distribution. The method of insertion is taken a step further at Mary Boone Gallery where devotional objects and photographs are incorporated into the compositions, blurring the distinction between what is molded and what is handmade. 

The small “real” paintings and found objects play on the meaning of the fetish as both a place-holder for the true object of desire and the commodity as product of human labor. To point to the psychological and manual activities that ascribe power to the fetish as such is to undo its power of symbolization and mystification. One peg that holds together the system of belief is removed.  

Hanging next to Airplane Painting is The Crucifixion, an image of a female figure where a male figure would be expected to be seen. The works cutout technique results in a highly graphic format that lends itself easily to the making of graphical symbols. In this case, Benning adopts the gendered bathroom graphic indicating “women” to the iconography of the crucifixion. The crucified woman appears pregnant, or the pronounced baby bump may be her butt protruding as she twists on the cross.  

Male or female, baby bump or butt: these are bodily orientations taken for facts held firm within culture, but that are repositioned in Benning’s works as matters of perception. A privileged order is upended. A painting titled Nature in this room highlights the perceptual dependency by appearing to be an abstraction, a kind of swirl of natural forms that may resolve, for some viewers, into an image of a wolf or a dog attacking. The red areas may be fallen leaves or pools of blood; the white dabs of light on the forest floor could be fragments of a face.  

Perception takes on the authority of belief in a large artwork titled Crowd. The entirety of this ambitious work is comprised of hundreds of cut-out components painted white with an aura of reptilian neon greens and pinks that cast their iridescent hues from the in-between spaces or shadows of the artwork, destabilizing ideas of whiteness as pure or natural. Drawn from an image of an audience at a rock concert, people gathered shoulder to shoulder but absent any details, the many shapes could also represent tombstones, ghosts or phantom followers.  

Through color and line, Benning links Crowd to a work in the rear gallery titled Mic which depicts a person whose face is obscured by long shaggy hair as they approach a microphone, taking agency in the moment, offering testimony, about to give voice. The work is grouped in the room with two other works, Guts and Sunset. The bodily site is therefore associated with cycles of time and becoming, offering instinct and feeling as an antidote to the notion of a fixed god.

Sadie Benning was born in Madison, WI, in 1973 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Benning’s work has been exhibited internationally since 1990 and is in many permanent collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Hammer Museum, the Fogg Art Museum, and the Walker Art Center. Recently Benning’s work was including in Greater New York, MoMA PS1; Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age, Museum Brandhorst, Munich and MuMOK, Vienna; The Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art; and Tell It To My Heart: Collected by Julie Ault, Kunstmuseum Basel and Artists Space, New York. Benning's work has also been included in Annual Report: 7th Gwangju Biennale; the Whitney Biennial (2000 and 1993); American Century, Whitney Museum; and the Venice Biennale (1993). Solo exhibitions include Callicoon Fine Arts, Susanne Vielmetter Projects Los Angeles, Participant, INC., Wexner Center for the Arts, Orchard Gallery, Dia: Chelsea, and The Power Plant.

For additional information contact Photi Giovanis at info@callicoonfinearts.com, or call 212-219-0326.

Callicoon Fine Arts is located at 49 Delancey Street between Forsyth and Eldridge Streets. Gallery Summer hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm. The nearest subway stops are the B and D trains at Grand Street and the F, J, M and Z trains at Delancey-Essex Street.

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