Louise Despont: Drawing from Life in Bali | Art21 "New York Close Up"

How deeply can a place permeate an artwork?
A native New Yorker now working in Bali, Louise Despont shares how her adopted island home shapes her intensive practice, informing the devotional, meditative, and fragile elements of her drawings. "I know that the most important thing to make good work is time and space," says the artist, "and living in Bali, that's where I was going to have the most of it.”
While the spirituality of Bali aligned with Despont's aesthetic, the tropical climate made her drawings vulnerable-a problem she solved with a dehumidified case. The artist herself was in a vulnerable place when she first arrived on the island in 2016, at the time of film; a long-standing relationship ended after they had moved to Bali together. "I wasn't sure how I could make the work not being in love," she says, but she soon found that her drawing practice sustained her. "Me in the studio with paper was there whether or not I was in a relationship."
For her 2016 exhibition at The Drawing Center in New York City, Despont created an immersive drawing that imagines energy as a physical body, documenting its lifecycle from embryo to "a return to formlessness." Conceptual artist Aaron Taylor Kuffner's gamelatron-a robotic version of the traditional Balinese orchestra, the gamelan-transformed the space into a sanctuary, and gave viewers the opportunity to, as Despont puts it, "travel through the drawings in their mind."
Louise Despont (b. 1983, New York, New York, USA) lives and works between New York and Bali, Indonesia. Learn more about the artist at:
art21.org/artist/louise-despont/
CREDITS | "New York Close Up" Series Producer: Nick Ravich. Director & Producer: Wesley Miller. Editor: Wesley Miller. Cinematography: John Marton, Wesley Miller, and Andrew Whitlatch. Design & Graphics: Chips. Color & Mix: Anita Hei-Man Yu. Artwork Courtesy: Louise Despont and Aaron Taylor Kuffner. Music: Aaron Taylor Kuffner, Gunung Sari Peliatan, and Waroeng Sebatu Gamelan. Thanks: I Lanang Bagus, Nicelle Beauchene, Jasmine Cannon, Community of Penestanan, Community of Ubud, The Drawing Center, Mata-Mata (the cat), Molly Gross, Gunung Kawi Sebatu, Kent Henricksen, Ni Luh Putu Wiwik Krisnayanti, Ni Kadek Nopi Kristina, Brett Littman, Puri Agung Peliatan, Ni Nyoman Srimben, and Tirta Empul. © Art21, Inc. 2019. All rights reserved.
"New York Close Up" is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; and, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by individual contributors.
TRANSLATIONS
Translated subtitles are generously contributed by our volunteer translation community. Visit our translation team at Amara for the full list of contributors:
amara.org/en/videos/xCJptIitg...
#LouiseDespont #Art21 #Art21NewYorkCloseUp

[@realpeople_takingplaces]

does anyone else think its weird they showed her relationship status at the end?

[@rashmi197731]

Amazing to see her drawing. Thank you for sharing.

[@ThePattiw]

I wonder what Louise gives back to Bali. She says that tourist have had a big impact on the small artisan village and development has encroached on to the rice paddies but “it some how goes on”?!? And she uses Bali imagery in her work, which is appropriation. How many Balinese artists get to be featured on Art21 or get a show in a huge NYC Gallery? It is fine to show artists working like this but there should be some references to how they impact the countries they appropriate from and live their fantastical lifestyles in. On the whole, even though well filmed, her story smacks of “Eat, Pray, Love” where rich Americans run away to other poorer countries to “find themselves”

[@cranebrainmeadow]

Isn't all art appropriating something? Nothing happens in a vacuum and its fine if a farm boy wants to learn Japanese Suminigashi for example. Let the world Mix. But, yeah your right the EPL aspect is a bit cringy and if I were her I might have been concerned that Bali was such a large character in a documentary where Art is supposed to be the main character. In the end Authenticity is all that lasts.

[@audreyh6628]

Well put. I found this artist profile repulsive for all the reasons you mention.

[@rameshgupta8536]

#artistvaibhavgupta

[@rameshgupta8536]

@@audreyh6628 #artistvaibhavgupta

[@cohencohen54]

Colonialism at its finest.

[@guyporter6105]

Absolutely beautiful

[@liemduongpainting7815]

Bali is so green and beautiful! Amazing!

[@rameshgupta8536]

#artistvaibhavgupta

[@StereoChimps]

love this type of videos!!

[@grizzlesnort]

eat, pray, love, colonize.

[@rameshgupta8536]

#artistvaibhavgupta

[@ZeniferJenZ]

❤

[@MMZS528]

how's understanding other spaces, societies and cultures with drawing a form of colonization. What she seems to be doing appears to be nonintrusive. What you are saying is rash and woke racism

[@sacdigitaldesignweb]

Art21 is obsessed with this particular artist.

[@AzharKubba]

wonderful

[@rider2731]

Hi Louise, I enjoy watching your videos. So relaxing. Thank you for sharing. What part of Bali is it? Is it Canggu?

[@ordoamorisart4370]

Ubud

[@elmaniacodeldibujos.califo5900]

Buen canal me suscribo 👍

[@fannykristian3177]

🌹💗

[@ghostingalong]

is that Nathan Pyle at 8:09?

[@Delta888ful]

The work is beautiful, but unfortunately this video doesn't seem real or grounded in the realities of what it's like to be an artist in today's world. It felt too much like watching someone living in a bubble within an exotic, spiritual landscape. I was also disturbed by the fact that some Americans have been gendrifying parts of the Bali landscape. Not good at all for Bali and its people.

[@cranebrainmeadow]

Delta888ful yes that’s kind of it. The art world is very out of touch with itself. So is the world of finance, education, government, law.. science may be the last hope.

[@strangeconstruct7751]

@@cranebrainmeadow well she doesn't represent the whole art world mind you.

[@cranebrainmeadow]

@@strangeconstruct7751 I couldn't agree more. I do think she has some things very right. She has a clear daily process/ritual, she has separated her personal state from her ability to produce etc. Her work is kind of a conservation challenge. But she's doing it her way with her medium. I also have to consider that this is a nine minute marketing piece that would be impossible to capture 360 degree character and work view. The documentary itself is a beautiful piece of work in itself. I wish I had one!

[@rameshgupta8536]

@@cranebrainmeadow #artistvaibhavgupta

[@rivh1399]

Mind-blowing works!

[@MMZS528]

what are those numbers?

[@haskafikritauhid]

Really love the vibe

[@LuisTorres-mx8fg]

Time and space. The experience of it all. Beautiful

[@TheEmpress1768]

We stan Louise Despont 💅🏾

[@jekalambert9412]

This is in response to all the comments that are concerned about colonization. We live many lifetimes. We reincarnate in many parts of the world. We often contain a resonance from places we lived in previous incarnations and are drawn to those places. I love Louise's art because it brings the nonphysical into manifestation. She walks the line between the energetic world in a way only an old soul can. Her art contains a beautiful harmonic resonance with her soul and I believe her soul incarnated to bring the spirit of Bali to those of us in other parts of the world. It's not about colonization, it's about shifting our consciousness at a very profound level. By shifting our consciousness via her art, she is helping to shift the consciousness on the planet. This is not measurable when using the rhetoric of politics as the yardstick. World history is a constant interplay between indigenous and immigrant.

[@artistalexanderrobbie]

endless cycle of privilege

[@bajaboolie]

Thank god we were told she finally found someone and had a baby at the end, because all that beautiful artwork would have been for nothing. Really, Art21? Can’t her work and life stand alone without reference to a happy ending with a man?

[@rameshgupta8536]

#artistvaibhavgupta

[@autofocus4556]

You’d rather it was a woman or she man? Lol

[@bajaboolie]

@@autofocus4556 I don’t care about gender-it’s about not needing a relationship to be complete.

[@autofocus4556]

@@bajaboolie the video is about her so maybe that’s something she values in her life.

[@rikirham]

Well its good tough to spend ur money in bali and get income from us... in political economy perspective, u r balancing the economics

[@rameshgupta8536]

#artisrvaibhavgupta