Design Museum
£19
You may not have realised, but at some point in your life you’ve probably encountered the work of Es Devlin. If you’ve been to an Adele concert, watched a Super Bowl half-time show, or tuned in to the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony, you will most likely have come face to face with creations by the British artist and stage designer.
To call Es Devlin impressive would be an understatement. The designer’s contact book is like a who’s who of the world’s biggest A-listers – she’s conjured up ingenious staging for the Weeknd, Lorde, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, the Pet Shop Boys and U2. Devlin has made otherworldly sets for some of the world’s most esteemed theatres and opera houses, from the National Theatre to Milan’s La Scala. She’s also the proud owner of three Olivier Awards, one Tony, three Emmys, one Ivor Novello, the London Design Medal… you get the picture.
With such an illustrious career, it’s no wonder the Design Museum has deemed Devlin worthy of a retrospective, staging her first European solo show as its big autumn opening. But how does all this awe-inspiring stage design come across when it’s not actually on a stage?
We enter into a recreation of Devlin’s studio, with messy bookshelves and drawings strewn all over the place. In a video projection Devlin tells us her life story: she was named after a witch, whose name her parents found in a crossword puzzle; her great-grandfather was an architect; she studied literature at university and then her mind was awakened at art school. So far, it’s a bit self-indulgent.
Then, in a theatrical flourish, the doors part to reveal the rest of the exhibition. Years’ worth of her work is shown in a very sleek, if perhaps a bit sanitised, display. White scale models of Devlin’s creations – from the staging for operas, to huge public artworks – rotate above glass boxes filled with sketches, notes and prototypes.
Years’ worth of her work is shown in a very sleek, if perhaps a bit sanitised, display
In a video projected on the far wall, Devlin feeds us interesting facts about her in-depth design process: the severely raked cone-shaped stage for Parsifal at the Royal Danish Opera was both too steep and created acoustics that were too loud, requiring performers to wear earplugs and a non-slip floor to be introduced; a mask made for the Weeknd’s Coachella performance was inspired by traditional Ethiopian masks; Devlin travelled to Compton to map out the set for Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl half-time show.
But overpowering all these fascinating tidbits is a feeling that the work is being overdramatised. Various saccharine melodies are pumped through speakers throughout the show, from lachrymose violins, to celestial choral arrangements and mawkish ambient scores. These cinematic soundscapes – some played while visitors gaze at Devlin’s early diaries and family photographs – make the work come across as self-important.
The finale of the exhibition is ‘An Infinite Library’, a glitzy rotating library installation created especially for the Design Museum. Again, it’s cheesy. A triangular bookshelf, with 2,000 books organised in a rainbow gradient that feels very millennial Instagram, is lit up brightly and rotates above a mirrored platform. Around its edge is a circle of plinths, each with an open book on top, where the audience is invited to sit and read from Socrates, Toni Morrison and the Bible (among others). Devlin’s voice reads aloud various inspiring passages from her favourite books. The whole thing is meant to be about the power of reading, but I just can’t muster any excitement towards it – it’s all very pretty but incredibly on the nose.
Devlin is clearly a generational talent. The work itself is incredible – I would kill to experience Lady Gaga’s mind-blowing Coachella performance in real life, or to see the Lehman Trilogy with its impressive rotating staging – but displayed in a museum it doesn’t manage to capture that same magic. I’d save your money on this and get tickets to the next performance she produces instead.
