| David Aaron Greenberg | |
| Birth Name: | David Aaron Greenberg |
| Birth Date: | 1971 |
| Birth Place: | New Haven, Connecticut |
| Other Names: | David Greenberg |
| Occupation: | artist, poet, songwriter |
| Years Active: | 1991–present |
David Aaron Greenberg (born 1971) is an American artist, singer, songwriter, poet, and essayist based in the New York metropolitan area.[1]
Greenberg attended Rutgers University from 1989 to 1993. In 1990, poet Allen Ginsberg became a mentor to him.[2] Ginsberg would praise Greenberg to William S. Burroughs as "a very intelligent kid."[3] After he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers, Greenberg briefly lived in Ginsberg's East Village apartment.[4]
Greenberg's paintings and drawings were first exhibited at Alleged Gallery's original Ludlow Street location in a show curated by Tatiana von Fürstenberg in 1995.[5] Roberta Smith highlighted his “energetic” drawing style in her review of the Na'er Do Wells group show at DNA Studios in 2000.[6] His work has also been exhibited at the National Arts Club.[7]
In 1994, Greenberg founded the New York City indie rock band Pen Pal with poet and drummer Mario Mezzacappa, which would release their album Best Boy on Evil Teen Records in 1996.[8] In 1999 he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City-based songwriting and production duo, with producer and composer David Sisko, that has collaborated on projects with artists as varied as Toots Hibbert and Ninjasonik.[9] [10] Greenberg released his first solo album Sending Love in 2020 on the indie label Arena 01.[11]
Soft Skull Press published Feeling Gravity's Pull, a collection of Greenberg's poems.[12] He also collaborated with artist Donald Baechler on 1998's Crowd Paintings (published by Lars Bohman Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden and 2002's 15 Paintings/15 Texts (published by Bernd Kluser Gallery, Munich, Germany).[13] [14] His essay on Patti Smith appeared in Parkett;[15] and his tribute to poet and painter Rene Ricard was published in Art in America[16] More recently, Greenberg explored the metal sculpture work of Bob Dylan in an essay published by WhiteHot Magazine.[17] Greenberg is also the co-author of Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith (with John W. Smith, published in 2003 by the Andy Warhol Museum,)[18]
In a July 2023 article in Whitehot Magazine, writer Noah Becker said of Greenberg, "Reconsidering ideological and visual givens is a more difficult task than people assume. Greenberg directly tackles this task and reifies and mythifies his subjects, paying homage to the people in his portraits. His process of sifting-down traditional identity and focusing on ethnic specificity, silences pre-conceived notions of what making figurative art should be about.”[19]
"Ultimately, even if it’s the landscapes that I do, the portraits, they’re all a way to elevate the everyday, every day. People are beautiful."–David Aaron Greenberg, In an interview with The Trops