Es Devlin retrospective opens at New York’s Cooper Hewitt

Straddling the worlds of high-brow opera and pop-culture fashion, British polymath Es Devlin has spent the last three decades forging a path all her own. Whether developing an immersive spatial and aural installation for Prada or a tech-forward backdrop for Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour, with the staging of James Graham's Dear England play at The National Theatre in between – and a recent contribution to U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at the Sphere – the highly sought-after designer transcends definition. 

Devlin’s ability to map light, project film on kinetic sculpture, and more recently introduce AI within her own creative ideation all stem from a deeply personal and interpretative yet relatable approach. Though harnessing the latest technology, her installations remain tactile and physically engaging.

‘An Atlas of Es Devlin’ at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

A new exhibition at New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum highlights the designer’s meteoric rise. On view until 11 August 2024, ‘An Atlas of Es Devlin’ highlights a vast array of process materials: maquettes, sketches, material samples, photographs, notations, and even standalone artworks: school year paintings along with more recent ones.

Andrea Lipps, associate curator of contemporary design and head of the digital curatorial department at Cooper Hewitt, worked closely with the talent to sift through extensive archives and select the most interesting elements. For Devlin, the show and accompanying monograph, An Atlas of Es Devlin – a sizable tome published by Thames & Hudson, UK – came together as a kind of atlas, a collection of maps. The book features over 700 colour images documenting 120 projects, Devlin’s personal commentaries, and interviews with collaborators Benedict Cumberbatch, Brian Eno, Sam Mendes, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Alice Rawsthorn, Carlo Rovelli, Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye, Lyndsey Turner, and Pharrell Williams.

Like the comprehensive publication, the exhibition pinpoints her personal and commissioned work in areas as diverse as art, activism, poetry, music, dance, and sculpture. Devlin’s clients have included the World Expo, Lincoln Center, the United Nations, the Olympic Games, and U2. As of late, her public sculptures have addressed the urgency of climate change and the plight of endangered species. Much of the talent’s preliminary process centres on reading and drawing.

'I have spent 30 years translating words into images and spaces – transforming texts on a page into kinetic sculptures that encompass viewers with light and song and use magic to alter their perspective,' says Devlin. 

'My craft is to imagine worlds that don’t yet exist, to invite audiences to practice “interbeing” within psychological architectures they have not previously inhabited, to remind viewers that they are not separate but connected to one another and to the biosphere. For this exhibition, I have gathered the drawings, fragile paper sculptures and small-scale revolving cardboard models that I and my studio team have been making over the past three decades, a miniature parallel practice at the root of the large-scale public performance and installation works.'

'An Atlas of Es Devlin' is on view until 11 August 2024

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
2 E 91st St
New York

cooperhewitt.org
esdevlin.com

The accompanying monograph, An Atlas of Es Devlin, is available on to buy on Amazon