Pitchfork

Photo by Alissa Anderson

From now through February 24 at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, a collection of music-inspired works from late Swiss painter Paul Klee will be exhibited next to the drawings of Californian freakazoid Devendra Banhart. They're calling the show "Abstract Rhythms", and if we may be so bold, it's an inspired pairing: both Klee's and Banhart's works contain a wide-eyed (occasionally childlike) wonder at the beauty of the world.

If you own Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, you've seen some of the pieces Devendra's displaying at MOMA, but don't think a spin through the CD booklet is a proper replica for the real thing. D.Ban's got ten new drawings and a series of photos of Devendra, friends, family and well-wishers up as well.

The drawings, like the album, apparently "spring from a personal narrative developed around a fictional protagonist named Smokey- an archetype of a person Banhart frequently encounters while on tour," according to a press release. Yeah, I bet there's a lotta Smokeys in your audience, beardo.

"I sing what I can't draw and draw what I can't sing," Devendra says.

Here's a little wall-text-speak on a couple of the pieces on display: "In Kadmon Smokey (2007), Banhart thematically draws from the kabbalah, presenting Smokey as the primordial Kadmon Adam (the first being created by the cosmos), pictorially represented as an abstract, mountainous form around which colorful planets revolve. In Banded King Snake and Thunder Maiden (2007), Banhart blends myriad cultural myths, including a reference to Quetzalcoatl, the ancient Aztec god who is half-bird and half-snake. In the drawing the snake's vibrant colors signify the plumes of the quetzal bird. Similarly, lightening bolts radiate from the hybrid figure's hat-an allusion to Indra, the god of thunder in Hindu mythology."

This is like that time I tried to read Siddhartha and instead ended up playing a "Duck Tales" video game for like seven hours.

To keep things swinging at SFMOMA, Devendra will bring his traveling rock'n'roll hoedown-- primed to hit Europe early next month-- there January 17, when he will play a live show.

For more Devendra art, check out the book Good Times: Bad Trips.

Full dates after the jump.

Devendates:

11-03 Istanbul, Turkey - Phonem Festival
11-05 Brighton, England - St. Georges Hall
11-06 London, England - Forum
11-08 Dublin, Ireland - The Village
11-10 Utrecht, Netherlands - Tivoli
11-12 Paris, France - Olympia
11-14 Lille, France - Theatre Splendid
11-16 Bordeaux, France - Krakatoa
11-17 Toulouse, France - Bikini
11-18 San Sebastian, Spain - Sala Gaztescena
11-20 Madrid, Spain - Sala Joy Eslava
11-21 Murcia, Spain - Sala Audio
11-22 Barcelona, Spain - Sala Apolo
01-17 San Francisco, CA - Museum of Modern Art