Gender

Alex and José is a 16mm single channel projection that explores gender, movement and form.

Music: Zeena Parkins

No More Nice Girls layers the personal and political histories of women active in the 1970s feminist art movement, including Brenda Starr, Yvonne Rainier, B. Ruby Rich, Carrie Mae Weems, and Sherry Millner. Set in the mid-1980s, when many of the advances of the women’s movement were threatened by backlash conservatism, this video forefronts conversations between feminists over a collage of archival photographs, newspaper headlines, and bumper stickers that recollect a feminist history in danger of erasure. 

" … Brilliantly written and realized”

In the Queen City is a series of three videos shot in Buffalo, New York that were produced following an invitation from Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center as part of their Ways In Being Gay festival.

An episode of The Brenda and Glennda Show, hosted by Brenda Sexual and Glennda Orgasm. Production Support Provided by Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center.

This music video for the band Julie Ruin, fronted by Kathleen Hanna, formerly of Bikini Kill, critiques the cynical music marketeers of corporate America. Criticism particularly targets campaigns aimed at women, which Benning and Hanna refer to here as the "Girls Rule (kind of) Strategy."

This two-part video Gender Cruise on the Circle Line involves Brenda and Glennda leading a group of drag queens, drag kings, and other gender nonconforming people on a three-hour ride on the Circle Line boat around Manhattan.

A family embraces the heart of evil in this Poltergeist re-make/drag show, circa 1992.

In this episode of Glennda and Friends, Glennda Orgasm and Mark Allen drink at Marie's Crisis Café, a piano bar in Manhattan. They interview other bar patrons and discuss topics including politics, Judy Garland, and the idea of mid-life crisis.

An episode of Glennda and Friends, hosted by Glennda Orgasm and Mark Allen.

Originally presented as a live performance piece using actors, multiple monitors, and music, Modern Times is a consolidation of seven short chapters in the life of a modern woman. In the first sequence, the objects in a suburban home are inventoried: "nice couch," "nice car," and so on — ending with the titles "nice concept," "nice image" — and unmasking this materialistic world as an impossible consumer fantasy. In the next scene, an attractive man sunbathes.

In Wigstock ’94, Glennda and her friend Bobra attend Lady Bunny’s Wigstock festival. Following the event’s move from the East to the West Village, they explore the changing dynamics and configurations of queer culture in New York. The pair interview other drag queens, members of the local community, and passersby to get a sense of how an event like Wigstock is received by the city.

An episode of Glennda and Friends, hosted by Glennda Orgasm and Bobra. Featuring Jackie Beat, Joan Crawford, Jackie O., Sherry Vine, Nona Vulva, Wendy Wild, and Yumi.

In response to the dominant impression that gay people are white people, Orientations aims to set the record straight on homosexual identity. More than a dozen men and women of different Asian backgrounds speak frankly, humorously, and often poignantly about their lives as members of a minority within a minority. They speak about coming out, homophobia, racism, cultural identity, sex, and the ways that being gay and Asian have shaped who they are.

Smothering Dreams is a tough, scathing condemnation of war and our country's fascination with violence. Reeves draws on his own experience as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam in the 1960s, juxtaposing actual combat footage, staged war games, and child’s war play to make his message horrifyingly clear. This work is dedicated to the men of the 3rd Platoon Company A 1st Amtrac Battalion and the North Vietnamese soldiers who died on January 20, 1969 along the Cua Viet River.

Coyolxauhqui recasts the mythical dismemberment of the Aztec Moon goddess Coyolxauhqui by her brother Huitzilopochtli, the deity of war, the Sun and human sacrifice. The film is a poem of perception, one that unveils how contemporary Mexican femicide is linked to a patriarchal history with roots in deeper cultural constructs.

“The idea was to address the cultural invisibility of older women through art and through action,” the voice-over explains as this video begins. This short works offers an introduction to the Whisper Minnesota Project, which organized The Crystal Quilt performance, an event that brought together hundreds of women over 60 on a Mother’s Day in Minneapolis. As the video explains, “The Crystal Quilt is a case study in reframing notions of older women’s beauty, power, and relevance. Through it we catch glimpses of life patterns and values lost to our generation.”

A beautifully ambiguous study of the nude in light and movement, this short silent film focuses on the dimly lit bodies of two women shot from Child’s distinctly non-male perspective.

In this video, Brenda and Glennda attend and interview participants at the 1991 New York City Pride March. Speaking with a range of attendees, they underscore the significance of non-white queer communities, diverse gender and sexual identities, and political causes at pride events.

In this episode of The Glennda and Brenda Show, Glennda and Brenda take over a public bus to protest discrimination and violence against queer people who are "out and outrageous". They pick up many other out and proud friends to stage this queer sit-in.

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Prefaces is composed of wild sounds constructed along entropic lines, placed tensely beside bebop rhythms, and a resurfacing narrative cut from a dialogue with poet Hannah Weiner. Child tells us, “The tracks are placed in precise and asynchronous relation to images of workers, the gestures of the marketplace, colonial Africa, and abstractions, to pose questions of social force, gender relations and subordination.” This tape serves as a pre-conscious preface to the parts that follow, whose scope and image bank are more narrowly defined.

In One Man Ladies, Glennda Orgasm is joined by Vaginal Davis as they meet women on the streets of New York City to discuss Laura Schlessinger's book Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives. The pair humorously explore the best ways modern women can find and secure a husband. 

An episode of Glennda and Friends, hosted by Glennda Orgasm and Vaginal Davis.

Budlong Memorial Middle School is heating up. Queer Teen Romance is a charmingly perverse homage to the after-school special that tackles bullying in a hormone-fueled flurry of forbidden sexual fantasy. When Bryce, the school bully, picks on outcast Kevin, a group of tough (and brightly accessorized) girls decide to teach Bryce a lesson. But maybe Kevin doesn’t want the pain to stop? 

The popular images of Asian American males, historically propagated in the mass media, range from "silent, sex-less, obedient houseboy" to "mystic martial arts master". Invisibility has been a core element in the public’s perceptions, and is reflected in the one-dimensional representation of Asian men. This is a program by and about Asian-American men. Through their experiences and voices we become privy to the peculiar and insidious ways in which racism affects their evolving self-identities.

In the Queen City is a series of three videos shot in Buffalo, New York that were produced following an invitation from Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center as part of their Ways In Being Gay festival. 

An episode of The Brenda and Glennda Show, hosted by Brenda Sexual and Glennda Orgasm. Production Support Provided by Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center.

This music video for the band Julie Ruin, fronted by Kathleen Hanna, formerly of Bikini Kill, critiques the cynical music marketeers of corporate America. Criticism particularly targets campaigns aimed at women, which Benning and Hanna refer to here as the "Girls Rule (kind of) Strategy."