Abigail DeVille (b. 1981, New York, NY) makes site-specific installations based on a particular location's history, material waste, hidden histories, and local oddities to speak to where we are in American spacetime. DeVille’s most recent solo exhibitions are Bronx Heavens at the Bronx Museum for the Arts, Bronx, NY (2022–23); The Dream Keeper for the Front International 2022, Cleveland, OH; Light of Freedom, commissioned by Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, NY (2020-21), which traveled to the Momentary at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2021) and the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2021-22). Other commissions and solo museum shows include The American Future, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland (2018-19); Lift Every Voice and Sing (amerikanskie gorki) at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2017-2018); Empire State Works in Progress (2017) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; No Space Hidden (Shelter) at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2017-2018), and Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See The Stars at The Contemporary, Baltimore (2016). DeVille was a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, 2017-2018 Rome Prize fellow at the American Academy in Rome, 2015 Creative Capital grantee, 2014-15 fellow at The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, Artist in Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem 2013-14 and 2012 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant recipient.
Image: Light of Freedom, 2020; Welded steel, cabling, reclaimed rusted metal school bell, blue-painted mannequin arms, gold-painted metal scaffolding, wood planks; 56 x 96 x 96 inches
Courtesy of the artist. Image by Andy Romer Photography
Commissioned by Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York