Installation View
Abigail DeVille, Lift Every Voice and Sing (amerikanskie gorki), 2017. Steel, wood. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
Abigail DeVille is known for her dense, formless installations that involve deep engagement with the history of violence against marginalized people and places. For Lift Every Voice and Sing (amerikanskie gorki) (2017), DeVille creates a hybrid structure inspired by the history of the United States.
The newly commissioned installation’s form is based on sources as diverse as the Great Seal of the United States; the Underground Railroad; artist Jacob Lawrence’s 1941 “Migration Series”; the Russian ice slide; and Augusta Savage’s destroyed sculpture Lift Every Voice and Sing from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The central form is a diamond star, a half-pyramid that alludes to the Egyptian Eye of Providence used on the US dollar as a symbol of esoteric power.
Abigail DeVille (b. 1981, New York) has exhibited work at the Contemporary, Baltimore (2016); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2014, 2013); the Venice Biennale (2013); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2012); and El Museo del Barrio, New York (2011), among many others.