A Ribbon - Devendra Banhart

What this video is

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…

Why it matters

A landmark of animated music video artistry in the freak folk canon; one of very few music videos of the era to receive a museum premiere (MoMA). The Gondry-Faggioni collaboration demonstrates how craft-based, anti-digital animation aesthetics functioned as a visual analog to freak folk's acoustic…

The director

Lauri Faggioni is a director, sculptor, toymaker, choreographer, and animator whose work earned international recognition as a creative polymath; her video for 'A Ribbon' debuted at MoMA and won a MVPA award. Michel Gondry is a French filmmaker born c.1963…