DEVENDRA BANHART
“Sometimes painting feels a lot more like the kind of music I wish I made.”
Devendra Banhart is an internationally renowned musician and visual artist. Considered a pioneer of the “freak folk” and “New Weird America” movements, Banhart has toured, performed, and collaborated with Vashti Bunyan, Yoko Ono, Os Mutantes, Swans, ANOHNI, Caetano Veloso, and Beck, among many others. A monograph of his drawings and paintings, I Left My Noodle on Ramen Street, was published by Prestel in 2015 and featured essays by Jeffrey Deitch and Beck.
Curator connected with Banhart on the occasion of The Grief I Have Caused You, his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Nicodim Gallery.
Interview by Dan Golden
Congratulations on your exhibition at Nicodim! I’d love to start our conversation by learning what the title of the show (The Grief I Have Caused You) means to you.
Other than a few older pieces, the whole show was painted during the lockdown. I thought a lot about how much grief I’ve caused others through my carelessness, selfishness, and unconsciousness—how awful it is to know I’ve caused someone grief, and how awful it is to feel grief that others have caused me. And then to see how powerful grieving is, the process of grieving can be like sitting in the sun after years in the dark forgiving yourself and others is a little bit like a superpower. It also just seemed like a funny title because of how very unfunny it is!
The Grief I Have Caused You, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 9 inches
Please share a bit about the development of the exhibition.
I was on tour for ten years straight, not living in any one place for more than six months during that decade and drawing was the only medium that I could consistently practice through the tour and moving around. This lockdown has been the first time I’ve been home long enough to paint!
Charnel Grounds, 2020, oil on canvas, 11.5 x 9.5 inches
Minotaur’s Widow, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 9.5 inches
Lockdown Portrait 1, 2020, ink and spray paint on paper, 8 x 5.5 inches
Lockdown Portrait 3, 2020, ink and spray paint on paper, 8 x 5.5 inches
Lockdown Portrait 2, 2020, ink and spray paint on paper, 8 x 5.5 inches
Lockdown Portrait 4, 2020, ink and spray paint on paper, 8 x 5.5 inches
Portrait of Charlie Panther, 2020, oil on canvas, 16.75 x 13 inches
I’m curious to hear about your relationship with Nicodim Gallery—how you connected initially with the gallery and how this exhibition took shape working with them.
I love love love Ben Lee Ritchie Handler… I especially love how easy it was to bribe him to give me a show….
There appears to be a kinship between your work and that of other artists such as Paul Klee and Marc Chagal—and perhaps Carroll Dunham as well. Are these artists touchpoints for you?
Klee is, of course, a huge inspiration, but Carroll’s work hits home a bit more in terms of stylistic kinship. While painting this series, it was more the books of Ajit Mookerjee, Christina Ramberg, Judy Chicago, Tibetan, Nepali, Bhutanese Thangkas, and Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints that were direct inspirations.
Portrait of Looking for Something You Don’t Want to Find, 2020, oil on canvas, 16.75 x 13 inches
Portrait of Devendra Banhart by Lauren Dukoff
2020 was considered a lost year for many creatives, but for some (like you!), it appears to have proved fruitful. Can you talk a bit about what the year was like for you and how the lockdown affected you creatively and personally?
Halfway through lockdown (as if it’s over, ha!) I remember seeing the word paradox everywhere. It seems to be the best word to describe our collective confusion. I don’t see that word around now. However, we may not have adjusted (I’m still shocked to see that articles urging people to please wear masks still have to be written), but we may have adapted to knowing that we will have to be making a lot of changes!
We now seem to be in a place of sitting simultaneously with something that feels like newfound resilience and inescapable horror.
In my case, I started out strong, feeling very fortunate to have my studio in my house, to have a chance to record and paint. Nearly all of my grief came from knowing how difficult a time it was for everyone else, from hearing stories from my cousin, a surgeon working in Memphis. He can only see his partner and two daughters a few days out of the month and is in the hospital the rest of the time dealing with sickness and death nonstop.
It was also a tremendously important time for social, cultural, and political change. As dangerous as gathering in crowds felt, it was too important not to. Hearing families share the pain of having lost their children and loved ones to the police brutality in front of the town hall in downtown Los Angeles was one of the most moving experiences of my life. I realized then that while mourning is not exclusively a collective activity, it’s much more effective in a group setting—the relief of sharing our pain is one of the seeds of healing.
Other Flowers Part 1, 2019, oil on canvas, 10 x 7.5 inches
Soon it was already October, and as time went by, that sense of appreciation for having a workspace at home, an altar room, and not having to do much more than be there for others started to give way to an ever enclosing anxiety and dread. I started not to want to look at a paintbrush and couldn’t bring myself to pick up the guitar. I couldn’t even sing. I felt mute. I’ve known depression my entire life, but this had a completely new quality to it. It lasted some time, and It’s still very present in my life. Still, I had to expand my support system, reaching out to my Guru for further spiritual instruction, Zooming it up with a therapist, and a couples therapist with my partner Em, volunteering …. adjusting to having to adjust to having to adjust to having to adjust to having to adjust…
Mala Entrance, 2012, ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches
Mala Body, 2012, ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches
Image courtesy of Devendra Banhart
In addition to your work as a visual artist, you’re also very well known as a musician, of course. How do you balance your creative work as both a visual artist and a musician?
Sometimes painting feels a lot more like the kind of music I wish I made.
Do music and painting elicit the same or different reactions in you? I.e., do you see them as independent practices or intertwined/symbiotic?
It always felt like what I couldn’t sing, I would paint and vice versa, but now they are more like two different portals. Songwriting is more like architecture—how to build something that can house the words and arrange the words to allow the house to stand on its own. It’s not that it isn’t emotional, but it’s a bit more of a horrible experience that I love. Painting is a bit more direct. Some pieces are just there in your mind, and it’s about sitting there and painting it out (this never happens to me with music), and some are unknown adventures of let’s see what happens.
I also don’t ever really turn to songwriting to cheer myself up, but painting a strange creature in high heels doing a disco dance does put me in a better mood!
Chod Offering at Muktinath, 2020, oil on canvas, 23.5 x 20.25 inches
Barbarous Nomenclature, 2020, oil on canvas, 33.5 x 25 inches
Game in Town, 2021, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches
The Fullness of Time, 2021, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches
Venus, 2021, oil on board, 25 x 20 inches
Who are some of the people who make up your core creative community? (artists, writers, musicians, other — just really curious to hear who some of your key people are)
Jon Beasley
Mel Shimkovitz
Josiah Steinbrick
Adam Green
Noah Georgeson
Jeremy Harris
Nicole Lawrence
Andy Cabic
Greg Rogove
Alicia McCarthy
These are the main people I bounce visual ideas off of…
What are you reading/listening to/looking at right now?
Ram Dass’s AMAZING autobiography Being Ram Dass. I can’t recommend this enough. I haven’t read a book until the sun went down for years.
I am also listening to Rhye’s new album, which is sensual, elegant, and heartfelt.
I’m looking at a cloud… it’s so obvious that we would have once thought very special beings lived in them. I wish that were true, and they would wave at me real quick. That would be nice.
Vanishing Wave 1, 2019, ink on paper, 19 x 14 inches
Vanishing Wave 3, 2019, ink on paper, 19 x 14 inches
Vanishing Wave 2, 2019, ink on paper, 19 x 14 inches
Vanishing Wave 4, 2019, ink on paper, 19 x 14 inches
You’ve lived and worked in various locations around the world. Would you say that place has a strong effect on your work?
Very much so, I tried to take a vacation once, and I hated it. I cut it short. Later on, I realized that what I enjoy is a work vacation! So I bring notepads, a camera, and sketchbooks and spend the trip writing, drawing, and gathering up information to weave into a song or a painting, which is a much better experience.
What are you working on now/next?
An ambient album with Noah Georgeson and music for a 6 part podcast about the Bardo that my friend Ben Bogin is putting together! Ok, thank you very much!
Portrait of Devendra Banhart by The Bardos
Feature portrait of Devendra Banhart by Lauren Dukoff
Devendra Banhart: The Grief I Have Caused You
Nicodim Upstairs, Los Angeles
February 13 – March 20, 2021