Devendra Banhart (American, b. 1981), Stars

marker on brown paper, unsigned, float mounted and framed under UV treated acrylic glazing.
Sheet size 8 x 5 in.; Frame dimensions 15 1/4 x 12 in.
Devendra Banhart is a musical and visual artist. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, but dropped out in 2000 to pursue musical projects. In addition to his own albums, Banhart has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians from Boy George to Beck, MGMT, Phoenix, The Strokes and many many others. He has performed at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Bonnaroo and Coachella.

In 2006, Diego Cortez curated Devendra Banhart's first solo show. It was presented at Gallery Mazzoli in Modena, Italy. This particular drawing was featured on a gallery wall in this 2006 show. Since then, Banhart's drawings have been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, MOCA in Los Angeles. Recently, in 2019 and 2020, he has collaborated with Hauser and Wirth and Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles.
From the Estate of the late Diego Cortez, New York and North Carolina
Diego Cortez (1946-2021), an art curator and filmmaker, was a cultural cornerstone in New York City who helped shape the art, music, and film scene from the 1970s forward. Among his incalculable list of accomplishments, Cortez is credited with launching the career of Jean-Michel Basquiat when he included him in his major 1981 exhibition New York/New Wave.

Cortez (née James Curtis), was raised in Geneva, Illinois, and went on to attend Illinois State University and later the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a Master's degree. He changed his name to Diego Cortez in 1973 when moving to New York in honor of his hometown of Geneva, a Hispanic neighborhood. Early on, Cortez developed and fostered numerous connections with major figures in New York and he established himself as a key player. He worked as a studio assistant for artists Dennis Oppenheim and Vito Acconci and later directed music videos for rock bands Blondie and Talking Heads. He also wrote Private Elvis, a photographic book about Elvis Presley's time in the army in West Germany.

Cortez cofounded the Mudd Club in 1978, a hybrid nightclub/art space in Tribeca that was frequented by celebrities, artists, and musicians. It was on the dance floor of the Mudd Club that he first met Basquiat. In 1981, Cortez curated New York/New Wave, a major avant-garde exhibition at MoMA PS1 in Queens. It featured a new generation of artists as well as art superstars, such as Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Nan Goldin, Keith Haring, Fab Five Freddy, Robert Maplethorpe, and others. New York/New Wave was a turning point in the art world, as it ushered in anti-establishment art forms such as graffiti art and street art.

The transformative ideas Cortez put in motion throughout his life are threaded throughout New York City and beyond. In this collection you will see links between the Cortez as the collector, the artists and makers of these works, as well as the subjects. This selection of objects from Cortez's collection touches upon seminal connections he had throughout his monumental life and career.
Additional high-resolution photos are available at www.lelandlittle.com

Paper with small pin hole to top of sheet, edge tears and brittleness, as framed. Not examined out of the frame.