Abigail DeVille

The new work ‘Half Moon’ by Abigail DeVille utilizes found materials and simultaneously bears witness to and transforms public neglect, decay, and marginalization. Resonating with the site’s historic role as ferry slip and landfill, as well as its new position in a post-industrial neighborhood, the sculpture addresses issues of migration and immigration.

“In 1609, a ship called the Half Moon (translated from the Dutch “De Halve Maen”) arrived off the coast of what would eventually become New York City. As the captain of the vessel, Henry Hudson, sailed up the river that would one day bear his name, he encountered some of the 10,000 or so indigenous people living on either bank. In his journals, Hudson reportedly described them as “clothed in mantles of feathers and robes of fur, the women clothed in hemp, red copper tobacco pipes, and other things of copper they did wear about their necks.” Tellingly, Hudson wrote not of people but possessions. It is fitting that the story of New York City begins with a man who saw land, objects, and profit, but not human beings.” -Isaac Kaplan

Catalogue

Marking Socrates Sculpture Park’s 30th anniversary this year, the institution presents LANDMARK, a series of artist commissions and projects that transforms the land both physically and symbolically. Once an industrial landfill and illegal dumping ground, Socrates has transformed itself into New York City’s preeminent sculpture park and social space for public art, community engagement and urban discovery. LANDMARK directly addresses the idea of place as intimately tied to social and ecological structures, to maintenance and stewardship, and to evolution over time.

View the exhibition catalogue free online HERE>>>, a print version is not available.