“The Grief I Have Caused You” is Devendra Banhart’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Nicodim is hosting the exhibition in their upstairs gallery, which surveys work made during the lockdown and beyond. The past year has been one of great suffering and contemplation. Careers and housing prospects have been reconsidered. Even among the lucky few, who have not been directly affected by the events of this ravenous year, it is impossible to not feel grief for others that have been affected. Most of us have spent a lot of time this year in isolation considering what we’ve lost, who we’ve lost, and the grief we have caused others. 

To Wander In Fearful Places (2020) contains these bulbous shapes in the moonlit shadows of a nighttime pale blue. As a practicing Buddhist, Devendra layers ideologies from his belief system into his work. In Buddhism, demons are considered less like the entities of Western culture and more like energies within us that must be dealt with; such as greed or envy. The oil wanders around a room that perhaps exists in the mind, grasping in the dark, or lying in watch as shadows illuminate the wall with figures that demand confrontation. Hands stretch out across the ceiling, beak-like geometric shapes stab spherical ones, spikes poke feet on the lower right-hand side. A cacophonous late-night melody of searching anxiety. This state of meandering and fearfulness complements another piece of the same year, Portrait of looking for something you don’t want to find (2020). The most significant portion of the work is a large frowny face with eyes wide, outlined in oceanic blues, grotesque froggy greens, and yellow ochres. The work conveys the mind seeking answers to moments of pain, not yet realizing it may be unprepared to receive the answer. 

Devendra Banhart “The Grief I Have Caused You” installation view courtesy of Nicodim Gallery.

Stylistically similar to the aforementioned work and the exhibition title, The Grief I Have Caused You (2020) depicts an abstract black torso, complete with penis and frowny face. Many of Devendra’s works in this show liken bodies and figures to empty vessels that fill with emotion and can be let in or out. The use of a torso here gives the viewer a guttural feeling of the guilt of grief felt and perpetuated. In a separate interview, Devendra says of the work, “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.” 

Devendra Banhart “The Grief I Have Caused You”
Nicodim Gallery
February 13th – March 20th, 2021