Studies, PoemPortraits

Installed 2017–ongoing, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK

“In 2017, I was asked to make a temporary sculpture for London’s Serpentine Galleries Summer Party. My initial intention was to create a spiral of text around the circular pavilion. These models were early explorations of the idea. We collaborated with Google Arts & Culture, who developed a machine-learning algorithm trained on 20 million lines of 19th-century poetry. Each party guest donated a word to the algorithm, which composed a collective poem.”

—Es Devlin

A rectangular maze of white curved lines that spiral in circles; lines of text on the surface beneath the maze mimic these curves.
Es Devlin, Study model, PoemPortraits, Cardstock, paper, and board.
Installed 2017–ongoing, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK
Courtesy of Es Devlin
Read More
A collage of images of different people from the chest up. Text with blue or pink light is projected on each subject. Three images on the right are larger than the rest.
Event photographs, PoemPortraits
Installed 2017–ongoing, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK
Courtesy of Es Devlin
Read More
A clear case housing three different models; from left to right: a rectilinear maze in a yellow square, a circular maze within a rectangular form, and a form with even smaller rectangles layered together.
Es Devlin, Studies, Don Giovanni and PoemPortraits
Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution
Read More
A clear case housing two different models; from left to right: a circular maze within a rectangular form and a form with even smaller rectangles layered together.
Es Devlin, Study models, PoemPortraits, Cardstock, paper, mirror, and board.
Installed 2017–ongoing, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK
Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution
Read More