An Atlas of Es Devlin

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For her first monographic museum exhibition, Devlin will install her 30-year archive across the third floor of the museum. “An Atlas of Es Devlin” will feature over 300 sketches, paintings, illuminated paper cuts and projection-mapped rotating miniature sculptures that form the seeds of some of the most iconic, cultural congregations of music, poetry, art and activism in recent times.

The soundscapes created by Polyphonia aka composers Jade Pybus and Andy Theakstone include music from Es Devlin’s hugely popular immersive artworks A Forest of Us (2021) at Superblue, Miami, BLUESKYWHITE (2021) at 180 Studios, London, and several new works that will be shown in her new exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum of Design, New York (2023). Opening up the mesmerising set of Free Your Mind for exploration , the installation is free to attend and open to all. Es Devlin’s polymathic practice dissolves boundaries between art, activism, design, poetry, sculpture, music and architecture,” said Andrea Lipps, associate curator of contemporary design and head of Digital Collecting at Cooper Hewitt. “Within an environment conceived by Devlin herself, this exhibition will immerse visitors in the artist’s studio and archive. Centering archival artifacts, the exhibition will reveal the remarkable breadth, rigor and iterative process underlying Devlin’s transformative, multidisciplinary work.”

About Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Come Home Again,” her 16-meter-high monumental choral sculpture outside Tate Modern, drew over 7,000 visitors each day to join diverse London choirs and species in choral song during its showing in September 2022. Her rotating illuminated sculpture, “Your Voices,” entangled viewers within the 700 languages spoken in New York City in collaboration with the Endangered Language Alliance in December 2022.

As visitors enter the galleries, they will be invited into a replica of Devlin’s London studio to sit at her desk surrounded by tools, materials and works in progress. As the studio lights dim, projections will bring the objects and walls of the studio to life, encompassing viewers in Devlin’s voice and imagination. An Infinite Archive Exhibition design by Es Devlin Studio, with designers of record and fabrication by Pink Sparrow. Graphic design by Morcos Key. Support An Atlas of Es Devlin, the first monograph on Devlin’s genre-defying practice, is an experiential publication encompassing art, activism, theater, poetry, music, dance, opera and sculpture. Artist and stage designer Es Devlin’s work explores biodiversity, linguistic diversity and collective AI-generated poetry. She views the audience as a temporary society and encourages profound cognitive shifts by inviting public participation in communal choral works. Cooper Hewitt continues to push the boundaries and contribute to a more expansive definition of what design means today and how it relates to the complex world around us,” said Maria Nicanor, director of Cooper Hewitt. “Es’ work and her multidisciplinary practice embody that profound intention, which is so important to communicate to our audiences as the nation’s design museum.” The Studio Becomes a Show

One of the galleries becomes a miniature cinema, engaging viewers with images and footage of Devlin’s installation and performance works. An Infinite Library Celebrated Artist and Designer Es Devlin To Install 30-Year Archive in First Monographic Museum Exhibition

Devlin creates large-scale sculptural installations that combine light, music and language. Her work is rooted in a lifelong practice of reading and drawing, from the plays, song lyrics and opera libretti that have informed her performance sculptures, to the works of fiction, poetry, geo-philosophy, anthropological economics, biology and climate science that have formed the foundation of her art and activism over the past decade. She views an audience as a temporary society and encourages profound cognitive shifts by inviting public participation in communal choral works. Her temporary participatory sculptures have been displayed at Tate Modern, Serpentine, V&A, Barbican, Imperial War Museum and Trafalgar Square. The publication of An Atlas of Es Devlin coincides with the artist’s 30-year archive exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, and her recent project credits include Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour – which has become the highest-grossing tour by a female artist in history. She also designed the visuals for U2’s opening performance at the groundbreaking MSG Sphere Las Vegas. Her sculptures have been displayed at the Serpentine, V&A, Barbican and Tate Modern, and her professional accolades include Olivier, Tony and Emmy awards, as well as an Ivor Novello and a CBE.I couldn’t even put my finger on why I didn’t go that route as a student,” says Devlin. “But at the time, I felt much more comfortable walking into a room full of people staying up all night making model theatres, and I think you make those decisions based on which rooms you want to stay in, versus which rooms you just want to walk out of. But I guess after 30 years of collaborating, I’m interested to see what I might do without collaborating as well.” An Atlas of Es Devlin , the first monograph on Devlin’s genre-defying practice, is an experiential publication encompassing art, activism, theater, poetry, music, dance, opera, and sculpture. Artist and polymath Es Devlin’s genre-defying practice encompasses art, activism, theatre, poetry, music, dance, opera and sculpture. This vinyl LP captures 20 of her iconic works’ soundscapes, with music produced by long-time collaborators Polyphonia, uniquely mixed with her voiceovers, including personal stories and poetry. British artist and stage designer Es Devlin (born 1971) is renowned for large-scale installations and sculptures that transform audiences across theater, music, architecture, and activism. This first monographic exhibition showcases the never-before-seen, small-scale works that lead to her monumental architectures.

Devlin’s work is at once deeply personal and inherently collective. Over the past decade her art practice has engaged with biodiversity, linguistic diversity, and collective AI-generated poetry. She views the audience as a temporary society and encourages profound cognitive shifts by inviting public participation in communal choral works. Curatorial interns and fellows assisted with research and development: Madelyn Colonna, Bailey de Vries, Barbara Kasomenakis, and Sophie Scott. She was the subject of the Netflix documentary “Abstract: The Art of Design,” and has received multiple Olivier, Tony and Emmy awards, as well as an Ivor Novello award and a CBE. About Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design MuseumDevlin’s collective AI-generated poem continues to evolve online having been initiated in 2016 as “Poemportraits” at the Serpentine. It formed the basis of the UK Pavilion at the World Expo 2020, the first building to generate a collective poem on its facade every minute.