Join artist and prolific filmmaker James Benning, who will speak about works on view in James Benning: Quilts, Cigarettes & Dirt (Portraits of America), followed by a screening of his latest film, READERS, 2017.

James Benning: Quilts, Cigarettes & Dirt (Portraits of America) is curated by Abaseh Mirvali, Executive Director and Chief Curator. Exhibition text by Constanza Medina, Curatorial Research Associate, and Abaseh Mirvali. Editorial support by Alesha Claveria, UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Fellowship Curatorial Intern.

James Benning (b.1942, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA) directed his first short films in the experimental-cinema tradition, retaining its formal rigor and taste for conceptual constraints while pioneering the notion of “figurative narrative.” His films rest on an experience of time and perception and its relationship to space. They also approach the notion of place from autobiographical, cultural, political, and historical viewpoints.