Born in 1954 in Chicago, Illinois, David Greenberger was raised in Erie, Pennsylvania. In 1974 he moved to Boston to attend the Massachusetts College of Art. In the early eighties Greenberger set aside painting to explore other media. Starting as a periodical in 1979, based on his conversations with nursing home residents, The Duplex Planet, evolved into audio works, both as recordings and performances with music. A musician as well, Greenberger was the bass player in the band Men & Volts through the ’80s, co-writing many of their songs.
Greenberger has consistently drawn on fractured narratives where emotional memory derives from the mood of the moment. Encompassing recordings, performance, drawing, and books, his work holds up a mirror to reveal that aging is not a broken version at the end of a life lived; it’s a continuum, a vital and up-to-date version of the self. In his return to drawing over the last decade, he delves into accidental poetics and limitations and rules, using circular causal approaches.
Greenberger has been the subject of four documentaries, and his work been adapted into comic books, short films, and one act plays. His essays and performances have frequently been broadcast on National Public Radio. He continues to be a keynote speaker at universities, museums and conferences on aging. He lives and works in upstate NY.
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2010 TEDx talk, “A Quarter Million Forgotten Conversations”:
2011 interview for the J.M. Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI, and including excerpts from the performance of Cherry Picking Apple Blossom Time with the Paul Cebar Stage Ensemble at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, 2009:
Promo for the documentary The Behavior of the Fish by Luca Diperrio, 2006:
Promo for the 2010 documentary A King in Milwaukee: