Es Devlin

Upstairs, above the Unlimited area in Halle 1.1 at Art Basel 2024 we have created a booth displaying 4 works: Surfacing (2024), an illuminated cube of rain penetrated by a line of light and Surfacing II (2024), a pair of painted televisions in which a dancing figure appears to displace pixels and pigment, are flanked by Mask (2018) a projection-mapped model city fusing hands and river, and Mask in Motion (2018) a revolving illuminated translucent printed city which meshes viewers within its kinetic shadow. The booth surprises visitors each hour as Surfacing’s box of rain, like a magician’s apparatus, conjures a 7 minute dance work by the choreographer Sharon Eyal. If you are in Basel please sign up at the link in bio to attend one of the hourly rituals. The work has been commissioned by BMW Culture and you can hear my conversation with their poetic hydrogen engineers Michael and Jurgen in the painted hydrogen powered cars outside the fair. Surfacing Choreographer Sharon Eyal Co-creator Gai Behar Surfacing Dancers Alice Godfrey Juan Francisco Gil Alfaro Guido Dutilh Nitzan Ressler Darren Devaney Surfacing II Choreographer Botis Seva Surfacing II Dancer Joshua Shanny-Wynter Surfacing II Video Ruth Hogben Mask Video Luke Halls Studio Music and Sound Design Polyphonia Lighting Bruno Poet Hair & Makeup Noa Eyal-Behar Costumes Odelia Arnold | Rebecca Hytting | Gon Biran Surfacing Text Es Devlin / Adrienne Rich / James JoyceFootage shot by ArtDrunk Gary Yeh Lucy Emms With special thanks to Disguise And the BMW Culture team: Hedwig Solis Weinstein Franziska Haun-Leyn Anton Scherpenbach Associate Designer Gonzalo Padilla for Es Devlin Studio Creative Producer Jo MacKay, LarMac Projects Ltd Producers / Production: Zilbert+Friends Britta Bahlow Eva Schlotter Clara Sachse Wunderland Axel Maria Zimmerman Ralph Firnkäs

Upstairs, above the Unlimited area in Halle 1.1 at Art Basel 2024 we have created a booth displaying 4 works: Surfacing (2024), an illuminated cube of rain penetrated by a line of light and Surfacing II (2024), a pair of painted televisions in which a dancing figure appears to displace pixels and pigment, are flanked by Mask (2018) a projection-mapped model city fusing hands and river, and Mask in Motion (2018) a revolving illuminated translucent printed city which meshes viewers within its kinetic shadow. The booth surprises visitors each hour as Surfacing’s box of rain, like a magician’s apparatus, conjures a 7 minute dance work by the choreographer Sharon Eyal. If you are in Basel please sign up at the link in bio to attend one of the hourly rituals. The work has been commissioned by BMW Culture and you can hear my conversation with their poetic hydrogen engineers Michael and Jurgen in the painted hydrogen powered cars outside the fair. Surfacing Choreographer Sharon Eyal Co-creator Gai Behar Surfacing Dancers Alice Godfrey Juan Francisco Gil Alfaro Guido Dutilh Nitzan Ressler Darren Devaney Surfacing II Choreographer Botis Seva Surfacing II Dancer Joshua Shanny-Wynter Surfacing II Video Ruth Hogben Mask Video Luke Halls Studio Music and Sound Design Polyphonia Lighting Bruno Poet Hair & Makeup Noa Eyal-Behar Costumes Odelia Arnold | Rebecca Hytting | Gon Biran Surfacing Text Es Devlin / Adrienne Rich / James JoyceFootage shot by ArtDrunk Gary Yeh Lucy Emms With special thanks to Disguise And the BMW Culture team: Hedwig Solis Weinstein Franziska Haun-Leyn Anton Scherpenbach Associate Designer Gonzalo Padilla for Es Devlin Studio Creative Producer Jo MacKay, LarMac Projects Ltd Producers / Production: Zilbert+Friends Britta Bahlow Eva Schlotter Clara Sachse Wunderland Axel Maria Zimmerman Ralph Firnkäs

Upstairs, above the Unlimited area in Halle 1.1 at Art Basel 2024 we have created a booth displaying 4 works: Surfacing (2024), an illuminated cube of rain penetrated by a line of light and Surfacing II (2024), a pair of painted televisions in which a dancing figure appears to displace pixels and pigment, are flanked by Mask (2018) a projection-mapped model city fusing hands and river, and Mask in Motion (2018) a revolving illuminated translucent printed city which meshes viewers within its kinetic shadow. The booth surprises visitors each hour as Surfacing’s box of rain, like a magician’s apparatus, conjures a 7 minute dance work by the choreographer Sharon Eyal. If you are in Basel please sign up at the link in bio to attend one of the hourly rituals. The work has been commissioned by BMW Culture and you can hear my conversation with their poetic hydrogen engineers Michael and Jurgen in the painted hydrogen powered cars outside the fair. Surfacing Choreographer Sharon Eyal Co-creator Gai Behar Surfacing Dancers Alice Godfrey Juan Francisco Gil Alfaro Guido Dutilh Nitzan Ressler Darren Devaney Surfacing II Choreographer Botis Seva Surfacing II Dancer Joshua Shanny-Wynter Surfacing II Video Ruth Hogben Mask Video Luke Halls Studio Music and Sound Design Polyphonia Lighting Bruno Poet Hair & Makeup Noa Eyal-Behar Costumes Odelia Arnold | Rebecca Hytting | Gon Biran Surfacing Text Es Devlin / Adrienne Rich / James JoyceFootage shot by ArtDrunk Gary Yeh Lucy Emms With special thanks to Disguise And the BMW Culture team: Hedwig Solis Weinstein Franziska Haun-Leyn Anton Scherpenbach Associate Designer Gonzalo Padilla for Es Devlin Studio Creative Producer Jo MacKay, LarMac Projects Ltd Producers / Production: Zilbert+Friends Britta Bahlow Eva Schlotter Clara Sachse Wunderland Axel Maria Zimmerman Ralph Firnkäs

Forest of Us is a mirrored labyrinthine installation which explores the visual symmetry between bronchial and arboreal geometries. It is on view at Superblue Miami alongside works by James Turrell and Teamlab. I will be doing an artist’s talk and book signing at Superblue Miami next Friday 23rd February at 10.30am. Please join me there. Link in bio

An Atlas of Es Devlin , the exhibition is on at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum NYC now until August 11. It’s a survey of the past 30 years of my practice. I will be holding an informal Q&A and book signing at the museum this Saturday 17th February from 3pm till 5pm. Please join me there. Link in bio

The Hunt, a play by David Farr (based on the film by Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm) featuring Tobias Menzies and directed by Rupert Goold, originally presented at the Almeida Theatre, London, will open in preview this Friday 16th February at St Ann’s Warehouse Brooklyn New York and will play until 17th March. Link in bio

I am doing two more book talks and signings this year: at two of my favourite bookshops: THIS FRIDAY 8TH DECEMBER 6.30PM-9PM BOOK SIGNING AND TALK WITH DONATIEN GRAU AT LIBRAIRIE 7L 7, rue de Lille 75007 Paris Librairie 7L is one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world - the former library of Karl Lagerfeld. Worth a trip to Paris - as is the phenomenal Mark Rothko exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton - which I’ll be returning during my visit. https://librairie7l.com/en/upcoming-book-signing/ NEXT FRIDAY 15TH DECEMBER 6.30pm -11.30pm BOOK SIGNING, TALK, ALBUM LAUNCH AND DJS AT REFERENCE POINT (180 STRAND) 2 ARUNDEL STREET, London WC2R 3DA Reference Point is my favourite bookshop in London. It’s part of 180 Strand, accessed around the corner on Arundel Street. Starts in the Atrium at 180 Strand with the launch of An Atlas of Es Devlin, the LP produced by The Vinyl Factory - a collection of soundscapes and spoken wordscapes composed by Polyphonia (aka Jade Pybus and Andy Theakstone), and also featuring a string composition by BASS (my brother). Then moving into Reference Point for a talk with the author Jonah Freud and artist and set designer Ibby Njoya. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-of-es-devlin-tickets-765334334597 Links in bio

An Atlas of Es Devlin, the monographic book, is now available again for next day delivery on Amazon UK It’s also available to order at most UK bookshops and at Librairie 7L in Paris Also available at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, NYC. The book will be back in stock more generally in the USA next spring, in the meantime Amazon Uk will ship to most countries. If you’d like to be kept up to date on availability , please email contact-us@thameshudson.co.uk Thank you for your patience as the teams at Thames&Hudson work around the clock to meet the demand for the book. The original print run of 5000 sold out on pre-orders, followed quickly by two further sell-out reprints. Here are a couple of short clips of Lu Huali and Yuenkwan So at the fabricators in China to give you a sense of the detail that goes into making each book.. PLEASE NOTE There are now 17 fake Es Devlin AI generated ‘biography’ books available on Amazon - these have weird altered photos on the cover and are nothing to do with me: please avoid them and wait for the real one...

An Atlas of Es Devlin, the monographic book, is now available again for next day delivery on Amazon UK It’s also available to order at most UK bookshops and at Librairie 7L in Paris Also available at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, NYC. The book will be back in stock more generally in the USA next spring, in the meantime Amazon Uk will ship to most countries. If you’d like to be kept up to date on availability , please email contact-us@thameshudson.co.uk Thank you for your patience as the teams at Thames&Hudson work around the clock to meet the demand for the book. The original print run of 5000 sold out on pre-orders, followed quickly by two further sell-out reprints. Here are a couple of short clips of Lu Huali and Yuenkwan So at the fabricators in China to give you a sense of the detail that goes into making each book.. PLEASE NOTE There are now 17 fake Es Devlin ‘biography’ books with weird AI altered photos on the cover on Amazon - these are nothing to do with me: please avoid them and wait for the real one...

In 1899 the opera loving theatre impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte installed the first electric lift in London at the Savoy Hotel. He’d built the hotel adjoining the Savoy Theatre to accommodate the audience of the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera company which he’d established in order to bring his love of opera to a London audience. The lift took 7 minutes to reach the top floor: some people found the experience terrifying and claustrophobic. So D’Oyly Carte painted it bright red and called it ‘The Ascending Room’ . Guests were given smelling salts and brandy by a young Italian intern. Sometimes he chatted to them to distract them: about horses, cars, British country pursuits. Sometimes he knew to avert his gaze, and focused on the details of their luggage: the stitching, pockets and details of the world’s luggage cycled up and down the storeys with him all day. By the time the young Italian returned to London he knew all he needed to know about human life and its luggage and set to work expanding his family saddle-making business. His name was Guccio Gucci.. The GucciCosmos Exhibition began in April at the West Bund Art Centre in Shanghai, and is now showing at 180 Strand London until 31st December. The century long story begins in the red lift. The meditations on the cosmos within each of us in this room of Two giants are based on my reading of Thich Nhat Hanh and Jeffrey Eugenides Curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, Produced by Beniamino Marini Video Design: Polina Zakh and Luke Halls Studio Composition and Sound Design: Polina Zakh and Polyphonia Creative producer: Jo Mackay. Fabrication: Stage One, Bay Productions, Diagon Associate Designers for Es Devlin Studio: Claudia Fragoso, Scarlett Moloney, Gonzalo Padilla Lighting : Bruno Poet Creative Direction: Sabato de Sarno. Link in bio

In 1899 the opera loving theatre impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte installed the first electric lift in London at the Savoy Hotel. He’d built the hotel adjoining the Savoy Theatre to accommodate the audience of the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera company which he’d established in order to bring his love of opera to a London audience. The lift took 7 minutes to reach the top floor: some people found the experience terrifying and claustrophobic. So D’Oyly Carte painted it bright red and called it ‘The Ascending Room’ . Guests were given smelling salts and brandy by a young Italian intern. Sometimes he chatted to them to distract them: about horses, cars, British country pursuits. Sometimes he knew to avert his gaze, and focused on the details of their luggage: the stitching, pockets and details of the world’s luggage cycled up and down the storeys with him all day. By the time the young Italian returned to London he knew all he needed to know about human life and its luggage and set to work expanding his family saddle-making business. His name was Guccio Gucci.. The GucciCosmos Exhibition began in April at the West Bund Art Centre in Shanghai, and is now showing at 180 Strand London until 31st December. The century long story begins in the red lift. The cover image on this post was taken in Shanghai : Brunelleschi’s miraculous feat of renaissance engineering, the duomo di Firenze, is mirrored to become a Cosmic egg, an origin story in multiple cultures . The room shown in the footage is Zoetrope, an exploration of the interpretation of horse/ human relations throughout the history of the house. The latest chapter is the vegan version of the Horsebit bag - using animal free Demetra. Curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, Produced by Beniamino Marini Video Design: Polina Zakh and Luke Halls Studio Composition and Sound Design: Polina Zakh and Polyphonia Creative producer: Jo Mackay. Fabrication: Stage One, Bay Productions, Diagon Associate Designers for Es Devlin Studio: Claudia Fragoso, Scarlett Moloney, Gonzalo Padilla Lighting : Bruno Poet Creative Direction: Sabato de Sarno. Link in bio

In 1899 the opera loving theatre impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte installed the first electric lift in London at the Savoy Hotel. He’d built the hotel adjoining the Savoy Theatre to accommodate the audience of the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera company which he’d established in order to bring his love of opera to a London audience. The lift took 7 minutes to reach the top floor: some people found the experience terrifying and claustrophobic. So D’Oyly Carte painted it bright red and called it ‘The Ascending Room’ . Guests were given smelling salts and brandy by a young Italian intern. Sometimes he chatted to them to distract them: about horses, cars, British country pursuits. Sometimes he knew to avert his gaze, and focused on the details of their luggage: the stitching, pockets and details of the world’s luggage cycled up and down the storeys with him all day. By the time the young Italian returned to London he knew all he needed to know about human life and its luggage and set to work expanding his family saddle-making business. His name was Guccio Gucci.. The GucciCosmos Exhibition began in April at the West Bund Art Centre in Shanghai, and is now showing at 180 Strand London until 31st December. The century long story begins in the red lift. This room is the latest is a series of revolving magic boxes I have been making over the past two decades. I think my interest in this form began when I was 7 years old and became obsessed with a small black cuboid tool called 7 Uses: as you turned it in your hand you pulled on it to extract a compass, ruler, knife, magnifying glass: everything at once. The soundtrack is a beating heart and reverberates through to the final room in the show: a red cuboid film based on Sabato de Sarno’s memories and manifesto. Curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, Produced by Beniamino Marini Video Design: Polina Zakh and Luke Halls Studio Composition and Sound Design: Polina Zakh and Polyphonia Creative producer: Jo Mackay. Fabrication: Stage One, Bay Productions, Diagon Associate Designers for Es Devlin Studio: Claudia Fragoso, Scarlett Moloney, Gonzalo Padilla Lighting : Bruno Poet Creative Direction: Sabato de Sarno. Link in bio