A Ribbon - Devendra Banhart

2004

A Ribbon - Devendra Banhart (2004) Director: Lauri Faggioni & Michel Gondry Era: Freak Folk & Indie Auteur Video (2004) - Mid-2000s intersection of freak folk's DIY ethos with prestige music video craft; analog-feeling animation aligned with anti-commercial indie sensibilities at peak of director-driven video artistry. Exceptionally high. One of the rare music videos to premiere at MoMA, co-directed by two artists of documented prestige (an Oscar-winning filmmaker and a MVPA award-winning sculptor-animator), for a song from a landmark freak folk album. A primary source artifact for the visual culture of New Weird America, the zenith of Gondry's music video period, and the broader art-world legitimization of the music video form in the early 2000s. Context: Released in 2004, 'A Ribbon' sits at the epicenter of the New Weird America / freak folk movement, a loosely affiliated scene of artists, including Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Animal Collective, who rejected polished pop production in favor of raw, intimate, folkloric aesthetics. The video, co-directed by two artists working at the boundary of fine art and commercial media, embodies this ethos: its MoMA premiere signals the convergence of outsider music culture with institutional art-world validation. Simultaneously, it represents a high-water mark for auteur music video culture in the mid-2000s, when directors like Gondry commanded artistic freedom alongside film careers. Director notes: The video is documented as a multi-plane animation project co-directed by Faggioni and Gondry, produced by Julie Fong under Partizan. Released June 2004 in France. The clip premiered at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, a rare distinction for a music video. Faggioni won a MVPA (Music Video Production Association) award for the piece. The animation style is consistent with the handcrafted, tactile aesthetic both directors brought to concurrent projects, Gondry's camera-trick photographic approach and Faggioni's sculpture/animation practice converging into a layered, paper-world visual language. The song appears on Devendra Banhart's 2004 album Niño Rojo.