The world-renowned artist continues to transcend the stage space with his innovative kinetic sculptures and performative environments that fuse art, music, light, and technology.
Her résumé is staggering. For twenty-five years, Es Devlin has established herself as the most influential stage and performance designer, excelling in the art of creating inventive journeys that break the fourth wall in fields as diverse as theater, dance, opera, music, art, and fashion. Some know her for her collaborations with global pop stars such as Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Kanye West, Adele, U2, and Lady Gaga. But her projects also include spectacular spatial designs for tours and concerts, plays like Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch and Sam Mendes' The Lehman Trilogy , closing ceremonies like the London Olympics, and fashion shows for Louis Vuitton and Dior. And the list goes on. At 51, Esmeralda, known as Es, Devlin is a multi-award-winning visionary for her outstanding storytelling work and her kinetic sculptures meshed with light, who constantly experiments with new technologies.
At the top of his art
In her most recent projects, the artist created Come Home Again , a luminous sculpture commissioned by Cartier and installed outside the Tate Modern, which showcases 243 endangered species from London. For Yves Saint Laurent's Spring/Summer 2023 menswear show, she designed a ring of shimmering metal, a kind of ethereal halo surrounding the show in the Moroccan desert. In February 2022, she created the halftime show for the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige. In 2021, the installation Forest of Us invited visitors into a maze of mirrors for Superblue in Miami. With Blue Sky White , she offered a two-part sculptural expression of our emotional response to the potential extinction of the blue sky. As for Memory Palace in 2019, this tour de force explored our relationship to memory, a "subjective and personal" cartography of 73 crucial moments in human history. Es Devlin continues to revolutionize the codes of scenography, reaffirming with each project that the set is not merely ornamental, nor the stage a simple accessory, by masterfully harnessing the power of imagination, which she both embodies and transcends.
Nathalie Dassa
