Devendra Banhart: The Grief I Have Caused You

Los Angeles

February 13 – March 20, 2021

Devendra Banhart The Grief I Have Caused You at Nicodim Gallery paintings art 2021

Devendra Banhart: The Grief I Have Caused You
Installation View
Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021

Devendra Banhart
Twilight Hiker, 2020
oil on canvas
33.5 x 25 in
85 x 63.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Barbarous Nomenclature, 2021
oil on canvas
33.5 x 25 in
85 x 63.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
The Kiss, 2021
oil on canvas
25 x 20 in
63.5 x 51 cm

Devendra Banhart
Disco Bardo, 2020
oil on canvas
25.25 x 20 in
64 x 51 cm

Devendra Banhart
Portrait of Charlie Panther, 2020
oil on canvas
16.75 x 13 in.
43.5 x 33 cm

Devendra Banhart
Portrait of looking for something you don’t want to find, 2020
oil on canvas
16.75 x 13 in
42.5 x 33 cm

Devendra Banhart
Chod Offering at Muktinath, 2020
oil on canvas
23.25 x 20.25 in
59 x 51 cm

Devendra Banhart
Chod Offering at Asura Cave, 2019
oil on canvas
23.25 x 20.25 in
59 x 51 cm

Devendra Banhart
Ma (Album Cover), 2019
oil on canvas
10 x 7.5 in
25.5 x 19 cm

Devendra Banhart
Cloud Flowers for Mother, 2019
oil on canvas
10 x 7.5 in
25.5 x 19 cm

Devendra Banhart
Marble Satyre, 2019
oil on canvas
20.25 x 15.25 in
51 x 39 cm

Devendra Banhart
Her Awe is Intricate, Her Joy Infinite, 2021
oil on canvas
30.25 x 25.25 in
77 x 64 cm

Devendra Banhart
Where the Brahmaputra River Descends, 2021
oil on canvas
33.5 x 25.5 in
85 x 64 cm

Devendra Banhart
Other Flowers Part 1, 2019
oil on canvas
10 x 7.5 in
25.5 x 19 cm

Devendra Banhart
3 Years in a Cave, 2020
oil on canvas
10.5 x 7.5 in
26.5 x 19 cm

Devendra Banhart
Minotaur’s Widow, 2020
oil on canvas
12 x 9.5 in
30.5 x 24 cm

Devendra Banhart
Portrait of an Initiate’s Subtle-Body Practices, 2021
oil on canvas
12 x 9.5 in
30.5 x 24 cm

Devendra Banhart
Upon Hearing of a Friend’s Passing, 2020
oil on canvas
11.5 x 9 in
30 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Other Flowers Part 2, 2019
oil on canvas
12 x 9.5 in
30.5 x 24 cm

Devendra Banhart
The Gates of Pemakö, 2021
oil on canvas
33.5 x 25 in
85 x 63.5

Devendra Banhart
The Grief I Have Caused You, 2020
oil on canvas
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Seven Flickering Tongues in a Noose of Flowers, 2021
oil on canvas
12 x 9.5 in
30.5 x 24 cm

Devendra Banhart
Kali Yuga, 2020
oil on canvas
10 x 7.5 in
25.5 x 19 cm

Devendra Banhart
Charnel Grounds, 2020
oil on canvas
11.5 x 9.5 in
29 x 24 cm

Devendra Banhart
She Sang This, Then Vanished, 2021
oil on board
25 x 20 in
63.5 x 51 cm

Devendra Banhart
Venus, 2021
oil on board
25 x 20 in
63.5 x 51 cm

Devendra Banhart
Nyima and Dawa, 2021
oil on canvas
16.5 x 15 in
42 x 38 cm

Devendra Banhart
Patience as Eroticism, 2021
oil on canvas
12.5 x 11 in
32 x 28 cm

Devendra Banhart
Widow, 2020
oil on canvas
16.5 x 13 in
42 x 33 cm

Devendra Banhart
Ascending Black Mountain, 2021
oil on canvas
30 x 25 in
76 x 63.5

Devendra Banhart
The Stem of the Aruna Fruit, 2021
oil on canvas
16.5 x 13.5 in
42 x 34 cm

Devendra Banhart
Preliminary Practice, 2021
oil on canvas
33.5 x 25 in
85 x 63.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Terminator Heaven, 2021
oil on canvas
9 x 7 in
23 x 18 cm

Devendra Banhart
Corpse Polluted with Contagion Sings from the Bardo, 2021
oil on canvas
10 x 7.5 in
25.5 x 19 cm

Devendra Banhart
Dance of the Carob Fairies, 2021
oil on board
16.5 x 13.5 in
42 x 34 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vajra Heels, 2021
oil on canvas
13.5 x 10 in
34 x 25.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Trying to Show you the Full Moon in My Heart, 2020
oil on board
16.5 x 13.25 in
42 x 33.5

Devendra Banhart
To Wander in Fearful Places, 2020
oil on canvas
20 x 16.5 in
51 x 42 cm

Devendra Banhart
To Wander in Fearful Places, 2020
oil on canvas
20 x 16.5 in
51 x 42 cm

Devendra Banhart
Susan in the water listening to R.E.M., 2021
oil on canvas
6 x 4.5 in
15 x 11.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Dakini, 2021
oil on canvas
11.5 x 9 in
29 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Portrait of a Grieving Satyre, 2021
oil on canvas
7.5 x 6.5 in
19 x 16.5

Devendra Banhart
Emptiness and Bliss, 2021
oil on canvas
14 x 11 in
35.5 x 28

Devendra Banhart
Chod Offering at Jongsong Peak, 2021
oil on canvas
23.25 x 20.25 in
59 x 51.5

Devendra Banhart
The Only Game in Town, 2021
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5

Devendra Banhart
The Fullness of Time, 2021
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5

Devendra Banhart
Ape in Pink Marble Portal, 2016
pencil on paper
17 x 14 in
43 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Ape in Pink Marble Portal and Elf, 2016
pencil on paper
17 x 14 in
43 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave 1, 2019
ink on paper
19 x 14 in
48 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave 2, 2019
ink on paper
19 x 14 in
48 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave 3, 2019
ink on paper
19 x 14 in
48 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave 4, 2019
ink on paper
19 x 14 in
48 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave 5, 2019
ink on paper
19 x 14 in
48 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave 6, 2019
ink on paper
19 x 14 in
48 x 35.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Lizard Lips, 2019
ink on paper
11 x 8.5 in
28 x 21.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Bliss Demon, 2019
ink on paper
11 x 8.5 in
28 x 21.5

Devendra Banhart
Compassionate and Loving Disco Demon, 2019
ink on paper
11 x 8.5 in
28 x 21.5

Devendra Banhart
Tubby Dufton eats Disco Cakes, 2019
ink and spraypaint on paper
11 x 8.5 in
28 x 21.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Lockdown Portrait 1, 2020
ink and spraypaint on paper
8 x 5.5 in
20 x 14 cm

Devendra Banhart
Lockdown Portrait 2, 2020
ink and spraypaint on paper
8 x 5.5 in
20 x 14 cm

Devendra Banhart
Lockdown Portrait 3, 2020
ink and spraypaint on paper
8 x 5.5 in
20 x 14 cm

Devendra Banhart
Lockdown Portrait 4, 2020
ink and spraypaint on paper
8 x 5.5 in
20 x 14 cm

Devendra Banhart
Saint, 2020
ink and spraypaint on paper
18 x 12 in
46 x 30.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Disco Tummo, 2020
ink on paper
15 x 11.5 in
38 x 29 cm

Devendra Banhart
Kurukulla, 2013
ink on paper
11 x 8.5 in
28 x 21.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Bliss Void, Weeping Gang, Yab-Yum, 2018
ink on paper
11.5 x 8.5 in
29 x 21.5 cm

Devendra Banhart
Merciful Demon Dancer, 2020
ink on paper
8 x 6.5 in
20 x 16.5

Devendra Banhart
Mala Body, 2012
ink on paper
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Mala Entrance, 2012
ink on paper
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave Face 1, 2018
ink on paper
16 x 12 in
40.5 x 30.5

Devendra Banhart
Vanishing Wave Face 2, 2018
ink on paper
16 x 12 in
40.5 x 30.5

Devendra Banhart
Vessel Unburdened by Meaning, 2014
pencil on paper
16 x 11 in
40.5 x 28 cm

Devendra Banhart
Kali Ma, 2017
ink and pencil on paper
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Pharaoh, 2017
colored pencil on paper
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Mala Vessels, 2012
ink on paper
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Mala Spires, 2012
ink on paper
12 x 9 in
30.5 x 23 cm

Devendra Banhart
Ape in Pink Marble Cosmology (Album Cover), 2016
pencil on paper
30 x 22 in
76 x 56 cm

Press Release

“Nothing is more gall-bitter than suffering, nothing more honey-sweet than having suffered.” — Meister Eckhart

Devendra Banhart’s barbarous, nonlinear nomenclature is savage in its nonaggression, and completely at peace with its perverse audacity. The recursive abstracted forms within his canvases are a non-hierarchical alphabet of allegories for the diminishment and destruction of ego. Each mouth, prick, eye, and ass breaks apart and reconstructs itself until they become a collective commune of equally all-important, yet weightless pieces of the tantric universe. They are a cycle of mala beads through the fingers of time.

The Grief I Have Caused You, Banhart’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, is a survey of recent paintings and drawings mostly completed during a year when the Grand Pendulum neglected to swing back to “having suffered.” Though they were sowed in a moment of near-universal hurt, each composition manifests an equal, harmonic measure of joy: grotesque figurations of comedy and tragedy embrace and approach fellatio in “Nyima & Dawa,” 2021; a fat-bottomed, high-heeled hiker rejoices at a finally flat stretch of terrain while a behemoth of a feline looms menacingly overhead in “Twilight Hiker,” 2021; “Offering,” 2021, is a total deconstruction of the elements represented within the first two, a Buddhist garden partially digested by the biome of infinity. (Banhart’s flora includes the cubist and surrealist tendencies of Paul Klee, the expressionistic poetry of Helen Frankenthaler, and the violent gestures of Ethel Schwabacher, to name a few.)

If time is a circular property, then the human condition is a perennial state of suffering and having suffered, often and increasingly all at once. The Grief I Have Caused You is the artist’s rumination on the uniquely personal, yet absolute universality of this push-and-pull. His grief is your grief, but so is his ecstasy.

___________

Devendra Banhart (b. 1980, Houston, Texas) lives and works in Los Angeles. An internationally renowned musician 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, amongst many others. His musical work has always existed symbiotically alongside his pursuits in the other fine arts. In addition to painting and drawing most of his own album covers (the album artwork for his 2010 album What Will We Be was nominated for a Grammy), he has contributed to Doug Aitken’s multimedia Station to Station project. He has performed at MoMA (New York), MoCA (Los Angeles), The Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), LACMA (Los Angeles), and The Broad Museum (Los Angeles). Exhibitions include Voglio proprio vedere, Mazzoli, Modena, Italy (2017); Sphinx Interiors & Other Works, Mazzoli, Modena, Italy (2014, solo); Abstract Rhythms: Paul Klee and Devendra Banhart, SFMoMA, San Francisco (2007–2008); Music is a Better Noise, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York (2007); and Devendra Banhart, Mazzoli, Modena, Italy (2006, solo). His monograph of drawings and paintings I Left My Noodle on Ramen Street (2015, Prestel) features essays by Jeffrey Deitch and Beck. The Grief I Have Caused You is Banhart’s first solo exhibition with Nicodim, and his first in Los Angeles.

Press Release & Checklist