David Byrne
dingbats
Oct 15–Nov 2, 2020
Interdisciplinary artist and musician David Byrne made this series of unique hand-drawn illustrations this year while isolating in his Manhattan apartment.
All sales proceeds from the exhibition will benefit the Arbutus Foundation. The drawings were created as part of We Art Not Divided, a collaborative, in-depth journalism project that explores the human capacity—and deeply human desire—to overcome division, in turn promoting a message of unity and bridging divides leading up to the U.S. election this November.
The dingbats drawings explore themes and preoccupations associated with daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic, from uncanny scenes of domestic life to surreal figurative illustrations, seeped in metaphor of a mind plagued by loneliness, boredom, and anxiety brought on by quarantine. While some drawings are entirely literal, others are a subtle evocation of the longstanding inequities and injustices exposed by the pandemic. The dingbats are Byrne’s response—an imaginative way of expressing hope, a desire for connection, and the power of community.
Exhibition Details
David Byrne
dingbats
Oct 15 – Nov 2, 2020
A rotating selection of dingbats will be on view at 540 West 25th Street in New York.
Artwork Release Schedule
Thursday, Oct 15: 10 Drawings
Monday, Oct 19: 10 Drawings
Thursday, Oct 22: 10 Drawings
Monday, Oct 26: 10 Drawings
Thursday, Oct 29: 10 Drawings
We Are Not Divided
All sales proceeds from the exhibition will benefit the Arbutus Foundation, Byrne’s non-profit organization dedicated to re-imagining the world through projects that inspire and educate. The drawings were created as part of We Art Not Divided, a collaborative, in-depth journalism project that explores the human capacity—and deeply human desire—to overcome division, in turn promoting a message of unity and bridging divides leading up to the U.S. election this November. We Art Not Divided is a special six-week project produced by the solutions-based online magazine Reasons to be Cheerful, the inaugural project of Arbutus.
The idea for the dingbats works came about when Byrne’s colleagues at Reasons to be Cheerful suggested he make a series of illustrations to accompany the articles published as part of the We Are Not Divided project. Byrne immediately thought about dingbats—or drawings—used in The New Yorker and other publications to visually break up imposing blocks of text to make reading more digestible. However, unlike the negative connotation usually associated with “dingbat,” which to many implies a lack of intelligence, these drawings echo a unifying message through their sympathetic and humorous reflections on these tumultuous and uncertain times.
“Humor sometimes allows us to say the unspeakable. To diffuse the nightmare and yet still somehow view it face on. So these seem to be about how it is to live right now. In this New World. I am trying to imagine ways we can respond, ways we can connect—via bodies or faces made or words, as rivers of mouths and eyes, as a village embodied as a person, a body. These I see as being somewhat hopeful—the rise of the collective is what might save us.”
David Byrne
Fifth Release
October 29, 2020
Fourth Release
October 26, 2020
Third Release
October 22, 2020
Second Release
October 19, 2020
First Release
October 15, 2020
