La Loge Harlem

2017 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

96.5H x 76.2W x 15D cm (38 x 30 x 5.9 inches)

Abigail DeVille

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The work La Loge Harlem focuses on the history of Harlem and its development over the last 200 years. It was a playground for the rich in the 19th century and where Old New York had its summer homes and diversions. The center image is a portrait of the artist’s grandmother when she was 16 in 1949. She and her mother were a part of the Great Migration moving to Harlem in 1943 from Richmond, VA. The glass and images are in reference on racist policing polices and a theory called Broken Windows that started in the early 1980s and which is implemented by the NYPD till today. In practice, Broken Windows has come to be synonymous with misdemeanor arrests and summonses. In New York, the largest city to implement the practice, between 2010 and 2015, police issued 1.8 million quality of life summonses for offenses like disorderly conduct, public urination, and drinking or possessing small amounts of marijuana.

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African American artist Abigail DeVille’s large sculptures and installations reflect on social and cultural oppression, racial identity, and discrimination in American history. She received her MFA from Yale University 2011 and her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2007. Recent exhibitions include Harlem: Found Ways. Cooper Gallery at Hutchins Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2017); Urban Planning: Contemporary Art and the City 1967-2017, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO (2017) and The Intersectional Self, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2012).

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Colors:

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• harlem.n.01
• history.n.01
• migration.n.01
• discrimination.n.01
• police.n.01
• maltreatment.n.01
• installation and sculpture artist
• american women installation artists
• contemporary artist
• born 1981
• american installation artists