DeVille creates lush, textured environments that occupy a space between the claustrophobia of the urban environment and the expansiveness of the universe. Utilizing a site-responsive technique, DeVille cultivates an awareness of material culture through the collection of its discarded remnants. The artist states:
Through the poetry of everyday experience and American history I create black hole room-sized sculptures that speak to different strands in American society’s material culture. Black holes are containers that are laden with forgotten information, the absence of light, power, knowledge and the harbinger of historical inaccuracies. I use celestial forms to think about our place in history, that links us to the beginning of time. Garbage contains the material history of the present and links to the past.
Abigail DeVille (American, b. 1981, New York, NY, lives New York) received her MFA from Yale University in 2011 and her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2007. DeVille has exhibited a growing constellation of site-specific installations in the United States and Europe. Her most recent exhibitions include Material Histories at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2014); Outside the Lines at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston (2014); Gastown Follies, Artspeak, Vancouver, BC, (2013); Bronx Calling, The Bronx Museum of the Arts (2013); Future Generation Art Prize at Venice, The 55th Venice Biennale (2013); XXXXXXX, at Iceberg Projects, Chicago (2013); Fore, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2012); Future Generation Art Prize Exhibition at the Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, Ukraine (2012); If I don’t think I’m sinking, look what a hole I’m in, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2012); First Among Equals, ICA, Philadelphia, PA (2012); The Ungovernables, New Museum, NY (2012); Bosch Young Talent Show, Stedelijk Museum, s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (2011). Her work has been written about in New York Magazine, The New York Times, Artforum.com, Time Out New York, CAPITAL, Philadelphia Weekly, Interview, Black Book, Nylon, Art News and Paper Magazine. DeVille is a 2012 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant recipient and a 2014/15 recipient of The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship at Harvard.
About The Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection
The Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature is the largest collection of its kind in the Midwest. For this installation, Abigail used the Marjorie Joyner Stewart Papers, the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church Archives, and the Timuel D. Black Papers.
The Marjorie Stewart Joyner Papers
Marjorie Joyner Stewart was a National Supervisor of the Madame C.J. Walker Beauty Colleges, chair of Chicago’s Bud Billiken Parade and Chicago Defender Charities, benefactor of Benthune-Cookman College, and an activist in the Democratic Party of Chicago. Her papers include correspondence, business records, programs, serials, clipping files, photographs and memorabilia. Organizational maters from the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Association, Alpha Chi Pi Omega Sorority and Fraternity, Cosmopolitan Community Church, and the Bud Billiken Parade are also included.
The Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church Archives
Ebenezer, founded in 1902, was one of the Chicago churches at the center of the gospel music revolution of the early 1930s. Under Rev. J.H.L. Smith, Ebenezer grew to more than 3,000 members and included Thomas A. Dorsey, Theodore Frye, Roberta Martin, Eugene Smith and Robert Anderson among those who made music there. The Ebenezer archives include church newsletters, souvenir programs, correspondence, financial records, photographs, sheet music, organizational records and memorabilia.
The Timuel D. Black Papers
Professor Emeritus at the City Colleges of Chicago, Timuel Black is a prominent historian, author, human rights activist, and expert on Chicago’s African American history. During the 1960s, he was president of the Chicago chapter of the Negro American Labor Council, and organizer of Chicago participation in the 1963 March on Washington. Active in more than 100 organizations over seven decades, the collection includes extensive organizational files, correspondence, manuscripts, subject files, oral histories, audiovisual materials, photographs, and memorabilia.
A special thank you to the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, and the Wicker Park Bucktown SSA #33. Televisions supplied by AVA recycling.
