Девендра Банхарт: Музыкант, художник и поэт.

American folk singer (born 1981)

Devendra Obi Banhart (born May 30, 1981) is an American Venezuelan singer songwriter and visual artist. Banhart was born in Texas, and raised in Venezuela and California. In 2000, he dropped out of the San Francisco Art Institute to pursue a musical career. In 2002, Banhart released his debut album and is best known for his albums in the late 2000s such as Cripple Crow and Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. He has since expanded his career to incorporate his interest and training in the visual arts.

Banhart has cited Vashti Bunyan, Simón Díaz, Ali Farka Touré, and Caetano Veloso as his main influences.

Banhart's music is often referred to as psychedelic folk, freak folk The New York Times has called his work "free associative work" Critics have compared Banhart's style to that of 1970s band Tyrannosaurus Rex, an early version of British rock musician Marc Bolan's T. Rex, though in a 2004 interview Banhart stated that he was unaware of Tyrannosaurus Rex until after he began writing and recording music.

Drawings by Banhart were featured in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels. Banhart's drawings have also been featured in the Art Basel Contemporary Art Fair in Miami, Florida, the Mazzoli Gallery in Modena, Italy, Spain's ARCOmadrid. and the Andrew Roth Gallery in New York. His drawings were featured in MOCA's exhibit "The Artist's Museum", in which the works of influential Los Angeles based artists from the last 30 years were presented. As part of the exhibition, Banhart collaborated with artist Doug Aitken and musicians Beck and Caetano Veloso for a musical and visual performance piece. Banhart was a participant in Yoko Ono's second Water Piece project. He read Joan Miró's poem "A Star Caresses the Breasts of a Negress" for the recorded guided tour of Tate Modern. In May 2015, Anteism published a collaborative book with Banhart and artist Adam Tullie titled Unburdened By Meaning. In June 2015, Banhart released a collection of drawings, paintings, and mixed media pieces, titled I Left My Noodle on Ramen Street, published by Prestel Publishing. In 2016, Banhart made a small cameo in the feature film Adam Green's Aladdin. In November 2018, Banhart curated part of the program for the Dutch Le Guess Who? festival. On April 23, 2019, Featherproof published Banhart's first book of poetry titled Weeping Gang Bliss Void Yab Yum. On May 8, 2019, Banhart announced a collaborative collection of linen clothing with designer Alex Crane titled "Almas". In September 2019, Anteism published a book of drawings titled Vanishing Wave. The drawings were originally sold to benefit the victims of the Tohoku earthquake in Fukushima. On December 14 and 15, 2019, Banhart curated a two day event at Hauser and Wirth Los Angeles titled Other Flowers. The event featured his photography, paintings, a pop up store with limited edition merchandise, as well as series of performances featuring musicians Rodrigo Amarante, Tim Presley, and Banhart himself. It also included performance art from Jasmine Albuquerque and Friends, Invisible Women, and Nao Bustamante. In March 2020, Banhart had his first solo art show in Los Angeles at Nicodim Gallery. The show was titled The Grief I Have Caused You and featured his first series of oil paintings as well as drawings from 2019 to 2020.

Year Album UK Albums Chart US Billboard 200 US Billboard Heatseekers Sales 2002 The Charles C. Leary — — — 2002 Oh Me Oh My — — — 2004 Rejoicing in the Hands 100 — —US: 24,000 2004 Niño Rojo — — — 2005 Cripple Crow 69 — 13US: 72,995 2007 Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon 93 115 3US: 52,995 2009 What Will We Be 109 139 4US: 23,827 2013 Mala 143 139 2 2016 Ape in Pink Marble — — 18 2019 Ma — — — 2023 Flying Wig — — —