es devlin's first monographic exhibition lands at cooper hewitt

an atlas of es devlin at Cooper Hewitt

From November 21, 2023, to August 11, 2024, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York showcases the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Es Devlin. Known for her large-scale illuminated installations and sculptures for operas, NFL games, and pop culture stars, the renowned British artist and stage designer displays her 30-year archive across the third floor of the museum. Titled An Atlas of Es Devlin, the exhibition presents over 300 sketches, paintings, illuminated paper cuts, and projection-mapped rotating miniature sculptures. These artworks form the seeds of some of the most iconic cultural gatherings, merging music, poetry, art, and activism in recent history.

image by Es Devlin Studio courtesy of Es Devlin

unveiling Es Devlin’s archive

Having started her journey at small theaters in 1995, contemporary artist and designer Es Devlin (find more here) has navigated a trajectory from dynamic stage designs at famous venues such as the National Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera to creating installations for prominent institutions like the World Expo, Lincoln Center, and the United Nations headquarters. Her sculptural contributions to Olympic Ceremonies, NFL Super Bowl halftime shows, and stadium tours for renowned artists like Beyoncé, The Weeknd, and U2 construct narratives that seamlessly blend the personal with the monumental. Over the past decade, she has adapted her artistic expression to address pressing issues, particularly those related to climate and civilization. Through public installations highlighting endangered species and languages, Devlin has motivated audiences to reconsider their connections to one another and the planet.

Until now, Devlin’s drawings, paintings, and sculptures have remained unseen. For this first monographic exhibition of her work, the artist and the curators at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (find more here) dug through the 30-year archive, mapping throughlines that connect Devlin’s teenage paintings to her stage designs to her contemporary installations. Devlin calls the result an atlas—a collection of maps. An Atlas of Es Devlin is accompanied by a homonymous book, a sculptural volume of over 900 pages that includes foldouts, cut-outs, and a range of paper types, mirror, and translucencies, with over 700 color images documenting 120 projects spanning four decades. In addition, the book features a 50,000 word text featuring the artist’s personal commentaries on each art work, as well as, interviews with her collaborators including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Bono, Benedict Cumberbatch, Pharrell Williams, Carlo Rovelli, Brian Eno, Sam Mendes, Alice Rawsthorn, Neil Tennant, and Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye.

image by Jason Ardizzone-West courtesy of Es Devlin