The exhibit Abigail DeVille: Bronx Heavens is a constellation of sculptures and installations by the artist who utilizes found materials and objects as a way to unearth forgotten ancestral histories, both real and imagined.
Born in 1981, native New Yorker Abigail DeVille has a deep personal relationship with the city, and a long-established interest in the marginalized histories of marginalized communities of color within it. In Bronx Heavens, the artist takes special consideration in how the Bronx has served as a sanctuary for immigrant and migrant communities for the last 120 years (including four generations of her own ancestors), prompting complex questions and ideas about freedom, racism, and oppression.
DeVille’s work is designed to tell the stories of lived experiences that many could not, offering a humanizing portrayal about the impulses that drive communities to seek a different world in the pursuit of happiness, and how those impulses are often fraught with illusion.
Curated by Eileen Jeng Lynch, Director of Curatorial Programs.
The exhibit is on view from October 12, 2022 to June 18, 2023.
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About the Artist
Abigail DeVille’s most recent solo exhibition was Light of Freedom, organized by Madison Square Park Conservancy (2020-21), and traveled to the Momentary at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2021) and the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (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).
Recent group shows have been held at the Swiss Institute, New York (2022); Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2021); Wave Hill, Bronx (2019); National Museum of Women in Arts, Washington, DC (2018); Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens (2016), Sculpture Center, Queens (2014), El Museo del Barrio, New York (2011, 2014), CAMH, Houston (2014); the Bronx Museum of the Arts; (2013), The 55th Venice Biennale (2013), The Studio Museum in Harlem (2012, 2014); ICA, Philadelphia (2012); New Museum (2012); and the Stedelijk Museum (2011). 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, 2013-14 Artist in Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and 2012 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant recipient.
DeVille’s work is in prominent collections, including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx; Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Cnap), Paris; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; Kaviar Factory, Henningsvaer; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (MBMA), Memphis; Pinault Collection; and The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York).
DeVille received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
DeVille was born in New York and works in the Bronx.
DeVille teaches in the Interdisciplinary Sculpture Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and at Yale School of Art.
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Location:
Bronx Museum Of The Arts
1040 Grand Concourse
Bronx, NY 10456
Tel.: 718-681-6000
E–mail: info@bronxmuseum.org
