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ADMISSION Free for members, college students (with valid ID), patrons under 18, active military and veterans $9 general public $7 senior citizens (65 and older), Ohio State faculty and staff (with BuckID)
All visitors are admitted to the exhibition for free on Thursdays after 4 PM and on the first Sunday of each month. The exhibition is closed on Mondays.
Please note: due to university guidelines on the COVID-19 pandemic, timed ticketing will be used to restrict capacity in our galleries and face coverings will be required in all areas of the center. We strongly recommend you purchase tickets online in advance of your visit and limit the items you bring with you. Tickets are also available by calling (614) 292-3535.
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Wexner Center members always enjoy free gallery admission.
Sadie Benning became well-known in the early 1990s for making brilliant low-tech videos—urgent and moving confessionals documenting their own teenaged sensibility. For most of the current decade, they’ve concentrated on gallery-based projects, often using found photographic imagery as the base material for works that ultimately combine elements of sculpture and painting into a unique hybrid. For 2020, Benning returns to the Wex with a new work of striking scale and ambition.
Pain Thing is a single installation consisting of 63 small wood panels grouped into 19 discrete and separately titled sequences that extend through three adjacent gallery spaces. Acrylic paint and photo transparencies are layered on each panel, followed by coats of meticulously applied clear resin. The overall result complicates the relationship between flatness and dimensionality while raising questions of narrative and memory, specifically in relation to traumatic and collectively inherited events.
The Wexner Center is thrilled to premiere Pain Thing, which follows Benning’s 2017 installation at The University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society, Shared Eye, since acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. Benning’s work has been shown at the Wex since the early 1990s. The recipient of a 2003 Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, they presented Suspended Animation, their first-ever solo gallery exhibition, here in 2007.
Installation view of Sadie Benning: Pain Thing at the Wexner Center for the Arts
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4a-4f (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4a (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4b (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4c (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4d (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4e (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning IUD seq 4f (detail from Pain Thing), 2019 Wood, photographic transparencies, aqua resin, and resin 9 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles Photo: Chris Austin
Sadie Benning: Pain Thing is organized by the Wexner Center and curated by Curator at Large Bill Horrigan.
SUPPORT FOR THE WEXNER CENTER Greater Columbus Arts Council Ohio Arts Council American Electric Power Foundation The Columbus Foundation Institute of Museum and Library Services Nationwide Foundation
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Huntington Bank Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams Kaufman Development Cardinal Health Foundation
ADDITIONAL EXHIBITION SUPPORT Cardinal Health
Sadie Benning: Pain Thing
