Benning once stated, “The invention of photography was something that was literally a threat to painting as a medium, and it feels unnerving to me somehow to insert one into the other—like a bad idea, or like sitting the wrong people next to one another at dinner.” The panels that make up Shared Eye combine three-dimensional objects with both found analog photographs and digital images shot by Benning. Their use of images and objects reflects a diversity of viewpoints and tastes: the “shared eye” of the title that envisions the act of seeing as fundamentally collaborative
Gallery label from 2019