Es Devlin

Es Devlin Rides the Wild Horses

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited).

Show Seen: An Atlas of Es Devlin @ the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum of Design

The one and only Es Devlin in the one and only time she appears in her show, in her piece Memory Place. (her hands appear a few times elsewhere). Displayed in the show’s entrance lobby where visitors wait for the next showing of her 4-minute intro video which takes place in a fascinating recreation of her studio. The pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click any for full size.

Having first experienced Es Devlin’s brilliance in 2010, the release of her debut Art , An Atlas of Es Devlin, the NighthawkNYC.com NoteWorthy Art Book of the Year for 2024, fired my curiosity as to what the show of the same name would be like. How would Es Devlin and the curators at the Cooper Hewitt distill the innumerable projects Ms. Devlin has been involved in these past 29 years already, and the book’s 900 pages, into a comprehensive and concise show, a “mid-career” retrospective, no less?

The show is so innovative, the attention to detail so exceptional, that even the shipping crates that transported the Art have their place in it! One of many things in An Atlas I’ve never seen before. I explain further on. Seen here are the labels on a crate that contained 2 models.

Opening in November, 2023, I pondered this all through 2024 as various ailments kept me from getting to 2 East 91st Street, and finding out. Stage Design is one of the most ephemeral Art forms there is. The book is divided between Sketches and notes, followed by a large section of color Photos of the performances. Building my expectations around that, finally getting to see the show twice during it’s final week, I got the unexpected: a show that largely consisted of beautiful scale Models of the stage sets, most created for exhibition! (Two were contained in the shipping crate shown here.) Well, if anything has proven to be the trademark of Es Devlin’s work, it’s the unexpected, which continues to remind me of Robert Rauschenberg.

Hang on to your hats! Installation view of the introductory gallery in the recreation of her studio before the Film begins. I rushed in to get this shot before it was filled up by those in line behind me. Beware, those seemingly innocent items on the table are not what they seem. Neither is that back wall.

Filling  the entirety of the 3rd floor, arriving visitors are asked to wait for the next showing of a 4-minute Introductory Film, which takes place in a gallery designed as a recreation of her studio, with a large work table in the middle, filled with the tools of her craft.

As the Artist speaks and Draws in the Video projected on the rear wall, the objects on the table undergo all sorts of permutations.

As visitors surround it and begin to take it all in, the Film begins. Compellingly narrated by the Artist in powerfully evocative words in Ms. Devlin’s hypnotic voice, accompanied by stunning visuals that somehow bring items lying on the table to life, the Artist takes us on a tour of her ideas and her work.

One section of the recreation of Es Devlin’s studio with the lights low during the Introductory Film. Full of ideas, some realized, some partially realized, some not realized yet, I imagined this room to be something akin to walking around in her brain.

On three of the walls surrounding the table were a cornucopia of fascinating objects I could have spent a few hours studying on their own. A bit like Sarah Sze’s incredibly involved installations, a lot of work went into their installation.

The Film ends with a bang.

At the culmination of the presentation, the Artist’s hands split the screen in half, opening the back wall, revealing her piece, Iris, beckoning visitors to enter the beginning of the main body of the show. Talk about a dramatic opening. Stage craft meets Art show in a way I can’t say I’ve experienced before. But, I bet I will again. I have no doubt An Atlas was must-see viewing for innumerable curators and gallerists.

The second “introductory gallery” features Es’s Iris.

Working with “names’ virtually her entire career, the first stop is her Iris with a voice over of Es reciting the names of her collaborators. A nice “Thank You” for the opportunities and sharing the credit for the results of this most collaborative of mediums. Iris, with multiple aperture blades, contains the names of the Artist collaborators on the outer blades, and all those involved with creating and mounting her projects fill the inner blades, a list that fills the first 9 pages in her book! It introduces what is a running theme in the show: collaboration, as you might expect for an Artist whose craft is Stage Design, like a bass player, something that doesn’t exist on its own (unless you’re a genius, like my late acquaintance, Jaco Pastorius). Still, it’s definitely her show. Her voice and vision runs through each and every work. Still, as any creative person who’s been hired by someone knows, working with someone else “who has a say” is often extremely challenging; perhaps the hardest part of the job. More than likely the Artist got the job for being who he or she is. For someone else to come in and suddenly want to change/modify that vision can be both counterproductive and counterintuitive. Not every Artist can do it.  The “dynamics” of creative collaboration is why most bands have the shelf life of milk. Yet, though it must have been there, in An Atlas there is no sign of creative struggle or difficulty. Making this all the more impressive, the list of her projects takes 4 pages in the book (as I showed here)! Either her brilliance is just a matter of fact for all her bosses, or she has an extremely winning way, as belied by her hypnotic voice. My money’s on both.

Installation view of the first gallery of work, with the earliest pieces at the far end. If you look closely you’ll notice mirrors at each end of the wall. In what might have been an effort to make the show feel larger, all the galleries had wall-sized mirrors on each end.

After leaving Iris, next up is the gallery of her fascinating early works, largely Drawings and Mixed Media works on paper, i.e. pen, markers, paint on paper Portrait and figure studies, like countless other Art students. I had to look closer to find the roots of her Stage Design work. In between the large studies, I saw sketchbooks, notebooks and loose sheets that contained outlines and ideas for stage productions, none of which are listed in her book.

On the very bottom of the far end of the wall, just above the power outlets, and so difficult to see, I spotted these notebook pages, the one at the lower right reads “Madam Butterfly,” perhaps one of the earliest Stage Designs in the show (the book in the upper left is dated October, 1994). Note that Es has Drawn the entire thing, boldly and confidently, in ink with no white-out or corrections. That speaks to the clarity of her vision, even early on. Immediately above it is a costume design. Note the inclusion of the pencil. I just love that her work was so centered on Drawing and hand-written notes, and continues to be. I don’t see Madam Butterfly listed in her book.

From this gallery, what are we to make of her beginnings? Where did all of what has followed come from? Between visits, I researched her background. Her CV on esdevlin.com, lists her Education, chronologically, as-

-Cranbrook School, 1984-1989 (a “co-ed grammar school1)
-BA Hans English Literature 2.1, Bristol University, 1990-1993
-Fine Art Foundation, Central Saint Martins, UAL, 1994-1995
-Motley Stage Design Course, 1995-1996

That’s it! After taking Art-centric courses for scarcely two years, then she just takes off. In only the second gallery of work, at the beginning of her professional career, the ideas are fresh, innovative & previously unseen- qualities that characterize her work to this day. Still in school(!), she’s already on her way. In the first vitrine, I was struck by her work with Wire, a 4-piece rock band, in 2003. Zillions of 4-piece bands, including a few with yours truly involved, have appeared on stage since The Beatles set a standard for what such a lineup “should” look like. “I didn’t know much, but I was bored of seeing the typical silhouette of a band,” she said on the wall card (where all Es Devlin quotes herein derive).

And so, Wire appeared like this-

Studies: Flag: Burning, for the band Wire’s Farewell Performance, 2003, Barbican Hall, London. Es Devlin’s first stage design for a concert. She made “illustrated cue sheets from which they ran the lights and the videos.” She spoke about not having enough money to afford velcro to enclose the band, so she had to use staples.

11 years later, another 4-piece band looked like this-

No staples here! U2, “Innocence & Experience” World Tour, 2014. *= Photo from esdevlin.com.

Wire would lead to such extraordinarily innovative shows as “Innocence & Experience,” 2014, and the subsequent “Experience & Innocence,” 2018, both by U2, who also includes 4 members. I believe this performance of “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” is from the “Experience & Innocence” tour. I saw U2 on what I believe was their first U.S. tour at the Ritz in 1980. Bono still sounds as strong as ever. To my mind, Wire, 2003, to U2 a decade later provides a classic case study in Es Devlin’s evolution.

Model, Bangerz, 3-D printed resin, recreated for exhibition. Staged, 2014, Miley Cyrus’s Bangerz World Arena Tour. Models of Ms. Devlin’s designs were the highlight of the show for me. Here, her face is a video projection from above that continually changed. To the side, a huge model of her beloved dog was also on stage. “We decided the Miley Cyrus should perform the entire show on her tongue. The first iteration was impractical, so we reduced the length of the tongue to a slide, down which Miley made her entrance- a sculptural portrait of a young woman rewriting her own script.”

Moving through the show, it became apparent to me that though elements recur, as. you see, Es Devlin has no one “style.” Since her words appear on virtually every wall card. Who else to speak better about her work? I’ll largely let her take it from here.

Model, The Lehman Trilogy, Painted MDF, acrylic, yardstick, 3-D printed resin, brass, and LED, recreated for exhibition, Staged in 2018 at the Royal National Theater, London, and the Park Avenue Armory, NYC. Es Devlin’s Tony Award-winning, rotating, design for Stefano Massini’s play The Lehman Trilogy, based on the family of businessmen. All the Models shown here with a center pole rotated. “A revolving glass box propels the action of The Lehman Trilogy, a parable that follows three generations of the Lehman family to chart the rise and periodic crashes of capitalism. Cardboard bankers boxes formed the foundations of the visual vocabulary. The more we invested the boxes with meaning, the more poignant the revelation became that those containers of cotton and coffee would become containers of financial records and numbers, ultimately revealing themselves to contain nothing at all.”

Model, Parsifal, Laser-cut form, resin and paint, recreated for exhibition. Staged in 2012 at the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen. “Richard Wagner conceived his final work as a ritual mass for the consecration of a stage. Over four hours of largely static drama, the audience transcends time and space through a rite of compassion. The director Keith Warner and I conceived an enormous revolving rook chess piece whose conical interior formed a new theater within Copenhagen’s opera house. We presented Parsifal’s odyssey from naivety to wisdom as a resistance to the rules of an antiquated game.”

As her career has progressed, a good number of her works have an “otherworldly” feel to them. Figures are frequently enclosed, in a maze, or presented in surroundings that are hard to fathom, often with no apparent way out.

Model, Howie The Rookie, Graphite and paint on laser-cut MDF and LED, recreated for exhibition, Staged 1999, Bush Theater, London, UK. “My first stab designs were experiments in framing light. The Bush Theatre was a room above a West London pub with an audience of 75 people. Mark O’Rowe’s play Howie the Rookie is a pair of potent, visceral monologues set in the housing estates of Tallaght on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland. I perforated a concrete plane with a line of light. This line conveyed both a burning horizon and a road making on a highway.”

Model, Macbeth, Graphite and paint on laser-cut MDF, acrylic mirror and LED, recreated for exhibition, Staged 2003, Theater an her Wien, Vienna. “The design for Ernest Block’s opera of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth was based on a revolving mirrored illusion box. It’s rotations evoked Macbeth’s churning conscience. We conjured scenes through smoke and mirrors. A half-bed wedged against a mirror appeared as a single whole, while Macbeth and his wife were duplicated. The illusion of a whole banquet full of guests overlaid their machinations as the box turned.”

Installation view of one of the corridors. It’s not as long as it looks. Note the overhead video projectors.

Model, Atlas, 3D-printed resin and LED, recreated for exhibition. Staged 2019, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA. Meredith Monk’s transcendent wordless opera, Atlas, charts the spiritual growth of the 19th-century explorer Alexandra David-Néel. The young girl encounters travel companions and spirit guides within a 12-meter-diameter sphere, scored with webs of international trade and travel routes. The form encompasses Monk’s radiant vision of a possible alternative to the current world order.”

Model, La Caja Mágica/The Seed, Graphite and paint on laser-cut MDF, nd LED, recreated for exhibition. Staged 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards, La Caja Mágica Arena, Madrid, and 2020, Jubail Mangrove Park, Abu Dhabi. “For the MTV Europe Music Awards, I imagined a 10-meter high revolving box that could reveal a shapeshifting series of performances. (Among others) Rhianna sang within a sea of red carnations pouring out of an iris (see next pic).”

Model, Fundamental, MDF, acrylic, acetate, and LED, recreated for exhibition. Staged for the Pet Sop Boys World Tour, 2006-7. Es says, “Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s album Fundamental critiqued Tony Blair, George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and immigration policy. For the tour, an X-ray image of a divided brain expressed the cognitive dissonance we felt as our country remained entangled in a ware we didn’t want. The show was performed outside the Tower of London, complete with projected pink tanks for the anti-war extravaganza ‘The Sodom and Gomorrah Show’ and giant sequined cowboy hats for the Bush/Blair pantomime “I’m with Stupid.” 

Model, Your Voices, Acrylic, filament, nylon thread, and LED, recreated for exhibition. Installed in the fountain at Lincoln Center, NYC, in 2022, Es says of it, “New York is the most linguistically diverse city on the planet, with 637 languages spoken by its inhabitants. Your Voices celebrated this diversity. Like a giant harp, the sculpture’s glowing arcs enveloped visitors and local choirs with an illuminated web. The piece rotated through a soundscape of languages from all over the city: from Arabic to Ashanti to Zapotec and Zulu. The strands spliced and framed the viewer’s perspectives, just as our perspectives are shifted when we learn to speak through the voices of others.”

Installation view.

Model, Compton Super Bowl, Laser-cut MDF, acrylic, 3D-printed resin, and LED, recreated for exhibition. Staged for the 2022 NFL Super Bowl Halftime Show featuring Dr. Dre, Kenrick Lamar, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent, Los Angeles, CA. “Dr. Dre and I proposed etching a map of the city of Compton onto the global Super Bowl stage. We case the buildings as charcters that led from Snoop Dogg’s house to 50 Cent in the club to Eminem breaking out of jail.”

Model: Come Home Again, 2022, Acrylic and printed resin. “For Come Home Again, I constructed a one-third-scale replica of the dome of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral on the lawn outside Tate Modern, facing the cathedral across the river. I filled dome with observational drawings of 243 of the 15,000 non-human species that call London home; the Londoners most at risk of extinction. ”All of the 243 animals depicted were based on Es Devlin Drawings.

Es Devlin in front of  the real Come Home Again, Tate Modern, London, 2022 *- Photo by Matt Alexander

The shipping crates for the Art, teased earlier, filled a gallery where a video screen was mounted in a stage set, providing seats for the visitors, with more all around me as I took this, and, cutting down on the need for space to store them! Something I’ve never seen before, it’s a  touch that shows the depth of the imagination and attention to detail that went into An Atlas at the Cooper Hewitt.

As if all the thought, planning and work that went into mounting An Atlas wasn’t enough, there is the incredibly innovative 900-page(!) book that accompanies it! So far, it’s the only Art book I’ve named a NoteWorthy Art Book for 2024, and that was before I saw the show. Here, in the show’s final gallery, another recreation of her studio, visitors get a look at the making of it, including the original book dummy (off-camera, in a vitrine to my left). This time, visitors were free to handle the items on the table, which were reproductions of the original work materials…right?

An Atlas, the show, reveals, that as her fame and notoriety grows,  so too are the opportunities for the Artist to step out and present her own work, without an overriding “boss,” as she has in major works like Come Home Again, and Your Voices, both 2022, and, of course, in An Atlas of Es Devlin, the book & show. Her own work shows the Artist bringing “big questions” to the forefront- including species near extinction (in Come Home Again, and in her piece Nevada Ark for U2’s The Sphere shows in 2023),

That Es Devlin’s work, and practice, is deeply rooted in traditional Art-making techniques, like Drawing and Sculpture, is a continual touchstone in both the show and the book. She uses them to produce work that lives on, and continually pushes, the cutting-edge of Stage Design and Production. I find this both fascinating and inspiring. On one hand, her example shows what is still possible by just putting pen or pencil to paper; that a master’s or doctorate degree are not prerequisites for achieving a very successful career, or greatness, in one’s chosen field in the Arts. On the other, it also reaffirms over and over again the power of one person’s creative vision. In her chosen field, her work strikes me as being downright unprecedented. In the larger world of Art, Es Devlin’s vision is at once as personal and as expansive as almost anyone else’s working today.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,” by U2 from Achtung Baby, 1991.

My look at the 900-page An Atlas of Es Devlin, the NighthawkNYC.com NoteWorthy Art Book of 2024, published to accompany the show, is here. 

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  1. Their site describes the school as “a co-educational grammar school in the heart of the glorious Wealden countryside.” ↩

NoteWorthy Art Book, 2024- Es Devlin…Lady Gaga, Kiss & Me

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*-unless otherwise credited)

Though I just teased some big names, I begin with the least known. There I was, in year 2 of my 5 on the road with a band, refugees from the disco mania which was sweeping all live Music and Musicians aside, all the way down in the Cutler Ridge section of Miami, FL. We pulled into the parking lot outside of this good sized venue, the Esquire Club, went it, met Al the owner, and began bringing in our gear. As we set up for what would be an extended stay, the assistant club manager came up, saw our stage clothes and my platform boots (Handmade by Jumpin’ Jack Flash, NYC, who had made Kiss’s legendary boots. Mine were a half-size too small, leading to permanent foot damage, an ever-increasing problem. Another Rock n’ Roll suicide.). Realizing that we were something different from what they had been presenting, he chatted me up about our “stage show.” Then, he suggested we add “flash pots” to our presentation.

Flash pots? 

He went away and came back with 3 pieces of wood, each about a foot and a half long by about 3 inches wide and 2 inches deep, some electrical cord and a few plugs. First, a rectangular cup about 3 or 4 inches long by a little less than 2 inches wide was cut into the top center of the wood. Next, he attached the the wire so the stripped bare end was in the hole. Then, he had me cut one side of the wire and install an on/off switch. Electricity, with a bare wire on a dark stage? Hmmmm… Then he showed me a grey, cylindrical container. Gunpowder. 

Gulp.

He scooped some of it and put it in the cutout. Plug in the wire and when I flip the switch? WHAM. Flash pot! The band covered by a cloud of smoke, and hopefully, only smoke! Ooohs and aahhs all around.

“Messiah,” Live at the Esquire Club, Miami, 1977. Left to right, T. Lavitz, keyboards, who would go on to fame after he joined The Dixie Dregs (aka The Dregs) the year after this was taken, before launching a successful solo career, Steve Smith, guitar, Bob Donzella, sax & vocals, Mark Smith, drums & vocals, and yours truly, Kenn Sava, bass & vocals. It’s about at this moment that I’d be tripping the flash pots. Gee, I wonder if that carpeting was fireproof… *-Photographer unknown. The pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click any for full size.

We made three of them, each laid 1/3 of the way across the stage, all under my control, to be tripped at particularly “dramatic” moments during our set. Needless to say, never having done anything like this, especially while playing, it was a bit unnerving. Luckily, I managed to set them off a few times, without disastrous result. Phew! After a week or so, the regulars had gotten to know us, and everybody relaxed, so we dispensed with the “special effects,” or, they ran out of gunpowder, I forget. (The Esquire Club was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in August, 1992.)

Yours truly, Kenn Sava, lve at the Esquire Club, Miami, FL. This is the first time I, or a former I, have appeared in the pages of  NighthawkNYC.com in its 8 1/2 years! *-Photographer unknown- a friend of Mark’s. I’ve grown quite fond of this picture as it shows me about as happy as I’ve ever been in my life, in spite of all we were dealing with at the time, including the poverty typical of bands like ours.

Such was “stage craft” in prehistoric times. Fast forward to January 20th, 2010.  

The Big Time. Radio City Music Hall, NYC, January 20, 2010. The night of Lady Gaga’s homecoming; her first NYC concert. Prior to this, she’d performed in clubs & bars, like I did.

There I am in the balcony for the NYC concert debut of an up and coming Artist who’s new hit singles, “Just Dance” and “Poker Face,” were all the rage, and her album, The Fame, was screaming up the charts. Intrigued, I managed to get a ticket for Lady Gaga’s New York homecoming show of her Monster Ball Tour at Radio City Music Hall, January 20, 2010, her first concert in her hometown1.

Down in front! Seated as far away as I was wasn’t ideal for picture-taking. Before it started, I took this because I was fascinated by the stage. Looking around the standees, you’ll notice a box-like frame and there’s a screen in front of it. Both things I hadn’t seen to that point. Something told me at that moment that this was going to be “different.”

As far as I know there hasn’t been an officially released video of what was the Monster Ball Tour, 1.0 that this show was a part of. I can only find pictures and videos shot by my fellow concert-goers, like this one of the opening. Poor quality, but it gives you a sense of it. ( Someone has posted a complete video of another stop on the tour. Again, it’s a far from ideal audience recording, but until something better appears, it’s the only record I know of of the complete show.)

The show began with a matrix-like grid on that screen shown earlier with a filmed Lady Gaga (LG) projected on it revolving while warping time and space, apparently free of gravity, along with a 1 minute countdown clock to the show’s beginning. As it ticked down, the crowd amped up by the second. 00:00:00:00, and there she was behind the matrix screen, live, alone on the big stage in her hometown, wearing an outfit with lights on it and performing her classic, “Dance in the Dark.” Quite a moment. “Find your Kubrick,” indeed. Stefani Germanotta had escaped the clubs & bars and arrived in the big time, in full effect. 

“Just Dance.” LG performs with a Roland Shoulder Synth (I believe) on a riser extending to about 10 feet over the base of a rotating cube. The area around the black disc she’s standing on is open. Watch your step! Note the frame-like border.

“Dance in the Dark” segued into her mega-hit, “Just Dance,” without pause. The screens on the sides seen above covered the band, something I’d never seen before, leaving a large performing area. Looking back from 2024, it might be easy to look at this show and not see it as all that “revolutionary” given what’s come since. At the time, I’d seen nothing remotely like what I saw that night. It still remains a unique experience. Meanwhile, the irresistible “Just Dance” got the balcony moving up and down so wildly as hundreds of concert goers jumped in time that I was worried it might well come down! How do they test for that kind of stress? When the show ended without catastrophe, as I was walking to the subway to the sound of my fellow concert-goers bursting out in spontaneous chants of “Oh oh oh oh oh…Caught in a bad romance,” over and over and over from near and far…the one thought on my mind was “SOMEONE involved in staging that show has a DEEP knowledge of Art history!”

“Paparrazzi” with LG’s hair fastened to the overhead pole on both sides by rings while two dancers hold the ends of the pole.

Time and again, I felt the influence of numerous Artists and Paintings. First, and foremost, the great Joseph Cornell was channeled as the entire stage was framed creating a box-like setting for the performance, as I show in “Just Dance.” Mr. Cornell, a revolutionary in a number of Artforms, is, perhaps, best known for his “Boxes.” The Cornell references continued during “Paparazzi” where Gaga’s hair was fastened to a horizontal pole with rings(!) while the dancers holding the ends moved/danced in step with the slightly helpless LG as she sang, right out of numerous Cornells that include a horizontal pole with rings attached, like Lunar Level #1, and Sun Box, below, among others. Joseph Cornell at a Lady Gaga show? Dali, Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte and Leonardo da Vinci also came to mind as the show went on. Of course, being Lady Gaga’s show, first and foremost, the credit goes to her.

Sun Box, (1956) by the incomparable Joseph Cornell, 1903-1972. One of many Cornell Boxes that include a horizontal bar (or two) with rings attached. Lady Gaga’s entire show felt to me like it was taking place inside a box.

Then, I saw her,  again, in July, 2010, at her Monster Ball Tour 2.0 at Madison Square Garden (her first MSG show); another big deal. It was a completely different show! It was very nice, very effective, but minus all the Art references. I assume that having a stage in a huge indoor arena called for a completely different presentation. Still, I missed the show I saw at Radio City, and at that point it made me realize how special it was. I was determined to find out more about it.

“Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say),” at Radio City. LG in a quasi-“gyroscope.” All those bars were continually in motion around her. A bit like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man?

I found out that Lady Gaga had worked on the Radio City show, and her Monster Ball 1.0 Tour it was a part of, with a stage designer named Es Devlin. 

Who?

It tuns out that Esmeralda (“Es”) Devlin, born in London in 1971, is nothing short of a polymath, who, apparently, never sleeps. While I had been sleeping on her, in the interim, her reputation grew, then exploded. Meanwhile, the press had upped the hype quotient to seemingly impossible levels-

“Modern Britain’s answer to Leonardo da Vinci,” The Sunday Times (of London).

Leonardo?? I can’t say that in all my years of looking at and studying Art and Art history I’ve ever heard that said of ANY Artist.

Perusing her website, I discovered the roster of world-famous Musicians, bands, opera companies, playwrights, and corporations who have entrusted her with their stages is about as “A List” as it gets, and extraordinarily long. Oh, and the Super Bowl Halftime and the Olympics are on it, too. As for those Artistic deep waters, she’s staged a number of Shakespeare’s plays, including Hamlet, and a few of Mozart’s operas, including Don Giovanni, perhaps his ultimate opera. Snippets of all of these and more can be seen on esdevlin.com. I also discovered that Ms. Devlin did not do the stage design for that 2010 Lady Gaga Monster Ball Tour 2.0 MSG show. Hmmm…

But, Leonardo? One of the supreme geniuses in Art and world history, and one of my personal “Ultimate Artists?”

Back into the fast forward machine to 2024, Es Devlin is now the subject of a mid-career Retrospective at NYC’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum of Design. To accompany it, she, Cooper Hewitt and Thames & Hudson have combined to use the show as an opportunity to publish her first book, An Atlas of Es Devlin. When I first spotted a copy on a shelf with only “ES DEVLIN” in silver on its 2 1/2 inch thick(!?) white spine, I felt a tingle of anticipation. Suffice it to say, given all I’ve seen- in person and via research, and the weight of that Leonardo reference, my expectations couldn’t have been higher.

What we have is, well… I’ll let the Thames & Hudson PR staff tell you-

“An Atlas of Es Devlin is a unique, sculptural volume of over 900 pages, including foldouts, cut-outs, and a range of paper types, mirror and translucencies, with over 700 color images documenting over 120 projects spanning over 30 years, and 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, and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. Each book is boxed and includes a die-cut print from an edition of 5,0002.”

PHEW!

HERE was the moment of truth. Will her body of work hold up to the close scrutiny such a comprehensive book provides?

“The instinct to fill a void with art is, to me, fundamental.” Es Devlin, hand-written reproduction inside the cover.

Ever see a resume like this? Inside the cover, the list of Musicians she’s worked with, left, and Playwrights & Librettists, right, surrounding Es in the middle after more pages of credits and thank yous.

Holding a copy in my hand, it was immediately obvious that the book is a duality. At once it feels crafted with care at every turn, mirroring the personal feel of a very limited edition, yet it’s a mass-produced object published by a big publishing company. The cover, shown earlier, and the first 8 pages are die-cut to look like we’re peering into a camera lens. On each of these the opening is surrounded by credits, and there are many of them. They lead to a picture in the center (the aperture) of the Artist, herself, on the 9th page, standing obliquely between a white cityscape and white clouds, dressed in red; the “focus” of her own show, for once!

The Table of Contents opens up to the 4 page list of projects arranged chronologically- 1995 at the top, 2023 on the bottom. Those in the center in black are included in the book. Others, to the left in grey, are omitted. It’s shocking how many projects are listed. It took two pictures to get them all in.

Then we get the title page, the table of contents, which opens to a double gatefold listing her projects from 1993-2023. (Has she really been creating for THIRTY YEARS already?) Moving forward into the book proper, I quickly realized that the design was, yes, unique, and yes, stellar. Impressive for a first book, but, I’m here for more.

Each project typically gets 2 full pages delineating its genesis, though many have inserts that range between 2 and 40 additional pages.

Her innumerable projects get small chapters of their own (small because there are A LOT of them), and many feature a variety of half pages, fold outs, inserted booklets, and what have you, making them different and fresh from each other. Then, there is a large section of color Photos of the actual performances, followed by the texts mentioned by Thames & Hudson earlier.

One of the world’s most remarkable Artists. What srtikes me about this Photo of Es Devlin in her studio is that she’s virtually surrounded by hand-written notes & Drawings. *-Photo by Tibby762

I was shocked to see that reproductions of countless Drawings on paper are included, which showed me that even Artists who’s work involves cutting-edge and innovative technologies continue to rely on Drawing on paper (something I have long considered to be an essential life-skill for everyone- whether it be on paper or digitally. I’m serious.) Then, another reveal- she relies on handwritten notes, which also fascinates me. When Sheena Wagstaff, the former Chair of Modern & Contemporary Art at The Met sat down next to me during a Nareen Mohammedi Symposium, I couldn’t help but notice that she, too, was taking notes by hand. Both commit their important notes and sketches to paper- not to a digital medium. (This is not mentioned as a criticism in any way of either highly esteemed lady.)

That’s not all. In addition to her devotion to Drawing, another pillar of her craft is reading. Page after page of An Atlas references something she read inspiring that project in some way. Reading this, I was struck with one overriding question-

“The woman is so incredibly prolific, creating project after seemingly impossible project steeped in infinitely complex details (in addition to having a family and a life): WHERE DOES SHE FIND THE TIME TO READ, and read so much?”

 

In the projects section inserts of all kinds are the norm, as in a hand-made book. The numbers “306 345 412 418-9” reference pages in the color Photos section where the realized project is pictured in its live performance.

Deep into the concept section, titled “A Selection of Works, 2012-2022,” as my mind is melting over as each project passes in the form of sketches, models or in-progress images as I page turn, I begin to wonder- “Did she really get this made? What did this look like for real?” After the concepts, the large section of color photos shows each project as it was realized. Historic proof each existed. Oh! And get this- MOST of the Photographs included in this NINE HUNDRED page magnum opus are by, you guessed it: Es Devlin, herself.

Taking it all in, the thing that strikes me is that stage design is fleeting. It takes an immense amount of work to conceive, design, and create, but once the performance is over, it’s gone, probably for good, living on in the memory of those, like me, who witnessed one of her productions. There aren’t even that many videos circulating of them! In creating An Atlas, Es Devlin has struck back against this impermanence with a lasting record of her process in creating these works and their singular results.

Taken as a whole, An Atlas of Es Devlin is a staggering achievement- like many of her productions are. Es Devlin has burst forth onto the Art Book world with a debut monograph that will be hard to top: on many levels. It’s destined to find itself on the reference book shelves of Artists, Playwrights, Authors, Opera Directors, Stage Designers, Graphic Designers, Book Designers, as well as Art historians and her fans, for years to come.

“A New Renaissance Woman.” Donatien Grau of the Louvre, no less, is on to something, I think.

Of his almost innumerable areas of exploration and invention, stage design was not one of Leonardo’s skills (as far as I know. Far be it from me to put ANYthing past him!). So, I wonder what he would make of Ms. Devlin and the Sunday Times’s comparison. We’ll never know. But, I can make this comparison- Leonardo did leave us some of the most astounding books any human ever created: his Notebooks. Though unpublished in his time, and no doubt created for his own use, they have subsequently become eternally important, extraordinarily prophetic and endlessly influential. Es Devlin has now published her Atlas. While I would never compare Arists, or say one is “greater” than any one else (such comparisons are meaningless), it would be endlessly fascinating to have Leonardo’s Notebooks next to a copy of Es’s Atlas, so one could page through both. While you would certainly feel the passage of time going back and forth, I have a feeling that you might still find some commonalities between Leonardo’s “books” and Es’s book. Endless imagination, endless creativity, the fruits of handmade marks on paper, and endless beauty, to name four; each steeped in a study of the craft of Art making and an insatiable curiosity to know more, to explore what’s possible and to take that next step forward. For those reasons, instead of Leonardo, if I were to compare Es Devlin to any Artist, living or dead, it would be Robert Rauschenberg. Each of her creations is THAT unique, one work from the next (and from what anyone else has done), and also THAT endlessly creative and innovative.

So, how’s THAT for a first book?

Es Devlin in the midst of creating, left, and a sealed Die-cut Print seemingly based on it, or a similar work, included with the first edition, right.

And, oh? The Lady Gaga show I saw at Radio City 14 years ago that wowed me so barely gets 4 pages of coverage out of the 900 in the book. THAT’S how vast Es Devlin’s work and achievement is. And she’s only in her mid-career.

Watch out, Leo!

An Atlas of Es Devlin is a NighthawkNYC.com NoteWorthy Art Book of 2024.

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  1. Prior to this, her two 2009 shows at Terminal 5 were her largest NYC shows ↩
  2. Apparently, two printings of it have now sold out, so the total edition size remains unknown to me. It’s also to be re-released in the USA in May so put those edition size numbers down in pencil. ↩

Danh Vo: Awakening From The Nightmare

“‘History,’ Stephen said, ‘is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’”
James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 2.

Museum Mile, late winter, 2018. Guggenheim Museum ahead on the right. Click any Photo for full size.

A typewriter sits almost alone on the floor of a gallery on the Guggenheim Museum’s 5th floor.

I stood opposite it for a few minutes over multiple visits, considering the installation of this gallery and watching other visitors pass by.

Only a few stopped to read the wall card, above it to the right. For those that didn’t, I couldn’t help wonder what they were thinking. “A typewriter? What? Why? Is this “Art?”

The wall card.

A few days later, about 50 blocks south, I saw another typewriter sitting alone on display.

Tennessee Williams’ Olivetti Typewriter seen at Tennessee Williams: No Refuge but Writing, at The Morgan Library, April, 2018.

This one was one of the great Tennessee Willams’ two most cherished possessions, along with a copy of Hart Crane’s Poems. A typewriter can be a weapon of murder, of Art, and now in both cases, an “Art object,” with completely opposite impacts. At the Guggenheim, Danh Vo’s placing of the Unabomber’s typewriter, (with it’s keyboard turned towards the side, and so, not an invitation to the viewer to use it, but to look at it as an object), is rife with irony, and very subtle power. Seeing both machines reminded me that a typewriter is a typewriter is a typewriter- it’s the person using it that makes it a tool for timeless beauty, or for catastrophic destruction. 

Therein lies the crux of Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, which fills Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda. Along with Art that he (or his calligrapher father) makes by hand, to a large extent Danh Vo’s Art relies on carefully selected actual historical items who’s significance fit the three primary threads that run through his Art- the history of Vietnam (dating back to it’s colonial past), American history, and his personal & family history. The Artist chooses objects for their ongoing power to speak to us through the history they witnessed or participated in. They are now mute witnesses, but like possessions in one’s home, their sum a portrait of where the Artist “lives,” so to speak. Combined, and seen over a large show, these three histories (Vietnamese, American and personal) interweave and dialogue with each other. The national and global becomes personal. For viewers, they are pieces of histories that speak to us still, like events that happened before our birth are “pieces” that have real and lasting effects on our lives many years after.

Then, I moved to the right, and saw what was installed along the intervening gallery wall in the next gallery.

On the wall behind the Unablomber’s Typewriter, left, is part of We The People, 2011-16, Copper, right. Installed (ironically, or coincidentally) so they mirror each other.

It’s a work called We The People,. Well, it’s part of the work called We The People, which totals over 300 pieces in all, each one part of a full size replica of the Statue of Liberty!

Every American “knows” the Statue of Liberty. How many would recognize one of her hands if seen by itself? The front of her left hand, minus her thumb (which is lying on the floor just behind me).

Vo’s parents idolized the U.S. as a land of political freedom and economic power, values their son couldn’t help but pick up, though later he suffered from disenchantment. Danh Vo was inspired after finally visiting the Statue in person to have it painstakingly replicated in copper. Press two pennies together between your fingers. That’s how thick the skin is on both sculptures! He and his team used the same techniques used to craft the original (though in China, instead of France), each of it’s 300 body fragment parts serving as both a reminder of the whole and an autonomous sculpture on it’s own. “In taking the Statue of Liberty as subject, Vo appropriated the definitive symbol of not just America but of the abstract notion of freedom itself. The metaphoric fracturing of the American body politic in the literal body of Liberty not only suggests the fragility of the philosophy she enshrines, it also enacts a profound violence on the fabric of the national consciousness1.”  In the catalog for the show, curator Katherine Brinson speaks of the damage to the American psyche that would be done seeing the actual Statue in pieces, referring to nerve the 1986 campaign to restore the Statue struck in the American public. Showing a replica of it is brings none of that trauma and instead allows the viewer to see it anew.

“I thought it would be interesting to make something that people felt so familiar with, in all the different ways that people project on the sculpture, and try to destabilize your own thinking of it,” the Artist said in 2013.

From the start, Danh Vo never intended to assemble the pieces he made, but rather to distribute them around the world, so it’s effect would be international, allowing no single person or entity to own more than 8 pieces of it. While about 50 parts of We The People, were previously seen locally in a 2014 Public Art Fund show in Brooklyn Bridge Park and City Hall Park, having seen only 6 pieces of it I still found it utterly remarkable- A remarkable concept. Remarkable that someone could do it and do it so well. Remarkable that he or she would choose to recreate all of it and not assemble it. Remarkable that this Artist, Danh Vo, is not now and has never been, an American2.

Two pieces from We The People,, another view of the works seen adjacent to the gallery with Kaczyinski’s Typewriter.

Danh Vo (pronounced yon voh) was born in Ba Rja, Vietnam, 4 months after the Vietnam War ended. Nonetheless, as it does with countless others in innumerable ways, the War casts it’s long shadow over Danh Vo’s life and Art, directly and indirectly. As seen in Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, the War, which ended 43 years ago this April 30th, occupies the center, a defining event in his life though he wasn’t even alive during it. After he was born, his family was among 20,000 resettled to Phu Quoc in far southwest Vietnam, and then to Ho Chi Minh City, as part of a government “reeducation” program. In 1979, when Vo was 4, his family fled Vietnam in a homemade boat with 117 others, and were rescued at sea by a Danish freighter.

After escaping Vietnam in a homemade boat and being rescued at sea, Vo, age 4, left, and his family were taken to a refugee camp in Singapore. Having left everything behind, they were gifted the items seen in this Photo by Christian missionaries, which the Artist has turned into a “Christmas card” long after the fact. “Untitled,” 2007, Photogravure.

After a winter in a camp in Singapore, the family was eventually resettled in Denmark, where Vo was raised. Today he lives in Berlin and Mexico City. “I don’t really believe in my own story, not as a singular thing, anyway. It weaves in and out of other people’s private stories of local history and geopolitical history. I see myself, like any other person, as a container that has inherited these infinite traces of history without inheriting any direction. I try to compensate for this, I’m trying to make sense of it and give it a direction for myself,” the Artist has said3.

Two pieces of “We The People-

In 2012, he won the Hugo Boss Prize, which resulted in his first show at the Guggenheim Museum, the remarkable I.M.U.U.R.2, (I am you and you are too), which consisted of about 4,000 Artworks and items that belonged to the late Painter, Martin Wong. It says quite a bit that Danh Vo would take his first opportunity of a show in one of NYC’s “Big Five” Museums and devote it to the work of another Artist. Martin Wong is someone who’s work Danh Vo has championed, as he owns at least one his Paintings. In that sense, it’s part of the thread of his personal history that his work continues to explore. It was also  a unique opportunity to walk around in the mind and life of the late Artist while it created an effect not unlike one of Martin Wong’s Paintings.  It also served to expose visitors (including myself) to the work of a terrific Painter, who died in 1999 at age 53. (For further information, I recommend “Martin Wong: Human Instamatic,” which was produced for a 2016 Bronx Museum of Arts show.)

Another piece of We The People, one of the last pieces fabricated. The hand that holds the tablet.

The exhibition catalog for Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, surprisingly lacks any direct information about it. Instead, it provides excellent background and analysis of the individual Art works, with the bulk of the book consisting of an extensive, complete catalog of Danh Vo’s exhibition history prior to Take My Breath Away, with numerous, fascinating installation views of each show that allows the viewer to this show to consider most of the Art on view here in different combinations and in different installations. This served to heighten my respect for his gift of installation. At almost 350 pages, it’s the first full-length monograph on Danh Vo, and now stands as the go-to reference on the Artist and his work over the first part of his career.

Untitled, 2018. Adds “Fabulous Muscles” to the show’s title, Take My Breath Away, yes, the theme from the 1980’s film “Top Gun,” was etched on the glass window in the Museum’s rotunda floor by the Artist’s father, Phung Vo. It was almost impossible to get a full shot of it. This was as close as I got over innumerable attempts.

As for Take My Breath Away, it’s rare (and wonderful, I find) to walk into a large show and almost all of it feels “different,” unlike almost anything I’ve seen before. A classic case of this was Matthew Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle, in 2003, also, at the Guggenheim, where almost every single object felt like it had been created by beings from another world. Danh Vo uses, mostly, recognizable objects, but he often deconstructs them or combines them in new and totally unexpected ways and then displays them brilliantly in ways that are Zen-like, daringly unexpected, and fresh.

In another gallery, a different “statue” is seen. “Oma Totem,” 2009, consists of items that belonged to the Artist’s grandmother. After deciding to emigrate to Germany in 1980, upon her arrival, she was gifted a washing machine, a television and a refrigerator, by an immigrant relief program, along with a crucifix, gifted by the Catholic Church. Vo has turned them into his work, “Oma Totem.” At the Guggenheim, it/they also sit virtually alone in a gallery, turned sideways. They’re a monument to being a refugee, of leaving one culture behind, while another now stands before you. As the wall card says, “…the sculpture reduces its subject’s harrowing experience of war and exile to the set of archetypes- refugee, convert, and consumer- that were assigned to Vo’s grandmother by her new society.”

Oma Totem, 2009, Philips television set, Gorenje washing machine, Bomann refrigerator, wooden crucifix, and personal casino entrance card, with “Uro,” 2009, Keys on a chain, behind on the wall.

Partially hidden on the wall behind them, is Uro, 2009, which consists of keys left over from a past relationship. The chain that connects them is all that remains of the connection they once shared. 

“If you were to climb the Himalayas tomorrow,” 2006, Rolex watch, Dupont lighter, American military class ring. Three items his father, Phung Vo, cherished as signs of his “success” in his new country. The Artist hd to negotiate with him to get him to give these to him for this work. Displayed in a lit vitrine behind glass, like they would be in a fine jewelry store, the work’s title was taken from a Rolex ad campagin.

 

Beyond the image of America his parents had while he was growing up, it’s interesting how much American history is in his work. As with the typewriter seen earlier, not all of it pertains to Vietnam.

“She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene,” 2009, Brass bugle, felt cap with velvet, bayonet sheath, field radio with wood and leather case, sashes, wooden drumsticks, fife, leather sword belt with gold and silver details, and 13-star American flag. The Artist purchased this at auction, exactly as it appears now, adding only the title. It was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It would seem to also stand for America in it’s ascendency to the country Vo’s parents idolized.

Taking his place in the now long line of Artists working with found objects, (primarily, though Danh Vo also makes Art by hand), with Marcel Duchamp appearing to be particularly inspiring for him, he brings new dimensions to this now 100 year old (at least) genre through the use of historic and personal items, his choice to disassemble them or leave them, and in the breathtaking way, in my opinion, that he installs them. .

A chandelier from the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Majestic, Paris, where the Paris Peace Accords were signed, ending the Vietnam War.

Photo from the Exhibition Catalog, P.XXXIII

Even when these items are literally in pieces their parts are shown in surprising ways.

Untitled, 2009, Carry-on bag, fruitwood St. Joseph (Germany, late 16th century). Danh Vo acquired a wooden sculpture that was too big to transport by plane. So? He cut it into sections and put each into a bag so he could carry them on. At the Guggenheim, they were distributed, in their bags, with at least one also on a handcart.

At other times, the pieces are recombined in extraordinary new ways, as in these sculptures.

(Unpronounceable title uttered by the demon in The Exorcist), Poplar Virgin of the Annunciation, 2nd century, with Greek marble sarcophagus, ca 1350, left. Throughout the show, Vo displays sculpture that has either been broken up into parts (by the Artist or found that way), and displayed them either alone or with parts of a totally different sculpture, as seen here on the left, the lower half of which shows a lion devouring an antelope, “juxtaposing the sacred and the profane4,” though it’s also visually striking and unprecedented to my eyes, the effect only enhanced by it’s installation.

Untitled, 2018, Marble Eros (Western Europe, 2nd century CE) and sandstone eagle (Germany late 19th century). Notice the wooden shims left unpainted underneath it. Museum staff told me that the Artist stopped them from Painting them, something they would always do.

At the Guggenheim, the staff regaled me with stories of how the Artist laid out this show with almost Zen-like techniques. He left shims unpainted, chandeliers uncrated, and left other pieces where the handlers left them. I was told it was “unprecedented.”

16:32, 26.05  Late 19th-century chandelier. “Leave it just like that,” the Artist must have said to the Art handlers. Because they did. Open shipping crate on unpainted blocks and all.

I found the installation completely captivating, a model of taste and restraint, a breath of fresh air. Looking through the catalog (where those responsible for the display of the work in prior shows are not credited), I see a similar brilliance in the design of each show. Whatever one thinks of Danh Vo’s Art, he has a mastery of display that borders on showmanship.

Lady Gaga, live at Radio City Music Hall, January 20, 2010, her first major NYC Concert, in a show designed by the brilliant stage designer, Es Devlin. The stage was set inside a “frame” that goes all the way around it, with a screen in front of it that was never removed. Many of the designs for songs reminded me of Art works. It became obvious to me that either Ms. Devlin, Lady G, or both, were channeling Art history. This one, with the singer’s hair fastened to rings threaded through the pole the dancers hold on each side of her, and then moved around the stage, reminded me of Joseph Cornell.

I said “showmanship,” meant with respect, because the only other instance I can think of where I saw such amazing, beautiful display was at Lady Gaga’s first “big” NYC concert at Radio City Music Hall in January, 2010, in a show designed by the brilliant stage designer, Es Devlin5. At the time, I was completely floored by what I saw, though I immediately knew that whoever was responsible for it had gone to school on Art history. There were elements of Dali, Magritte, and especially Joseph Cornell throughout. Danh Vo, is adding display to the accomplishments of Duchamp, and Rauschenberg, making it an inherent and critical part of his Art.

Lot 20, Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet Room Chairs, 2013, right, and 08:43, 26.05, 2009, Late-19th century chandelier, left, behind Painted screen. At the Guggenheim, Danh Vo turned the museum’s “bays” into stage sets of a sort, some, like this one, behind transparent screens. Vo acquired 2 chairs from John F. Kennedy’s Administration that he proceeded to dismantle. The parts, and the fabric, are shown on their own elsewhere in the show. Here the frame of one chair is juxtaposed with parts of a chandelier, from the room the Vietnam War Paris Peace Accords were signed in a beautiful, haunting display. Like a memory, it’s both there and not there. In front of both is a thin curtain on which a beast, possibly a lion, is shown with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. A reference to Kennedy being short down in 1963?

Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum to be seen from the top, down. He intended for viewers to take the elevator to the top and walk down the gently sloping ramp, something I always do. Yet, I have never seen a show laid out this way. Instead, each one insists visitors walk up the 6 ramps. Well, it is a small elevator. So, this gallery, above and below, was among the first I saw in this show, and created a powerful effect.

Detail showing part of the JFK Administration chair and the transparent screen in front of it.

Danh Vo is an Artist who’s also something of a cultural anthropologist, someone who’s attuned to the deeper significance of historic objects as part of history and histories. Like Ai Weiwei, he’s not bashful about deconstructing them to mine even deeper significance. It helps that he’s also blessed with a terrific sense of reconfiguring these objects and pieces of objects in stunning and fascinating installations that he varies greatly from show to show, creating unique experiences each time. Seen in pieces, they are often completely new experiences which cause the viewer to see them in new ways. From looking at the catalog’s compilation of these past shows, Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away is both a high watermark in the young Artist’s career and a “beacon” of a calling card that he is an Artist to watch. The Guggenheim took a chance with this show, and then took another chance in giving Danh Vo so much leeway in it’s installation. They, and he, have succeeded in creating a show that is rich in layers of meaning and relevance for the moment. The Guggenheim’s commitment to Danh Vo’s Art, going back to I.M.U.U.R.2, is something I believe NYC’s Big Museums should be doing, and doing more of.

At a time when the Vietnam War seems prime to slip from the consciousness of America and the world as it’s survivors age, pass on, and the world moves on, Danh Vo serves to show that the legacy of Vietnam is multi-generational in it’s effect and impact on the world. Something that is not news to anyone who was involved in it.

It also shows us that even Art can come from something so horrific. Art that has much to tell us now, lest we find our selves in another “nightmare of history” one day.

An unexpected Postscript-

It turns out that Danh Vo and I have someone in common. Or, we had.

Danh Vo speaks about his experiences with Tim Rollins at the Tim Rollins Memorial Celebration, SVA Theater, NYC, April 30, 2018, which also happened to be the 43rd Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, on April 30, 1975.

On April 30th, I went to the Memorial Celebration at the SVA Theater on West 23rd Street for my late friend, the Artist and educator Tim Rollins. Much to my surprise, Danh Vo was there, and was one of a number of well-known Artists, and friends, who spoke about Tim Rollins during the service! He also generously donated the flowers. Sitting way in the back, in the jam packed auditorium, I was taken by a group of them to the left of the stage.

One group of flowers donated by Danh Vo at the Tim Rollins Memorial Celebration, April 30th, 2018, at the SVA Theater.

The way they were half in the light, and half in shadow perfectly summed up the experience of the evening for me. Was Danh Vo responsible for the lighting? I tend to doubt it because the lights were for what was going on onstage. Such is my respect for his installations, he had me wondering.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “I Want To Come Home For Christmas,” by Marvin Gaye and Forest Hairston in 1972.

My thanks to Kristina Parker and May of the Guggenheim Museum.

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  1. Exhibition Catalog, P. XLII ↩
  2. As far as I know. He has lived here, though he does not now. ↩
  3. Exhibition Catalog, P. XXIII ↩
  4. Ibid P.39 ↩
  5. Seen in concert 6 months later, at MSG, all of the avant garde stage design had been replaced by a more traditional, over the top, arena extravaganza documented in an HBO Special. Unfortunately, as far as I know, the Es Devlin production, one of the most amazing concert productions I have ever seen, has not appeared on video. ↩