Devan Shimoyama USA, b. 1989

The Grove is an installation by Devan Shimoyama. The work debuted in the Smithsonian’s Arts & Industries Building in Washington DC in 2021. It is intended by the artist to be a monument to the racial violence, tragedy and loss coinciding with the years surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic. Like all of Shimoyama’s memorials, The Grove feels joyful. Sparkling with color and light, it seems to invite us closer to take a moment to delight in what is present. Yet, if we dare to look behind the glittering veil, a shadowy space is revealed, which is haunted by what is absent. The Grove takes that notion of simultaneous presence and absence to another level, aesthetically and allegorically. It consists of an assortment of crystal covered shoes dangling from the interconnected wires of four large-scale, rhinestone encrusted telephone poles. This instantly recognizable memorial unavoidably calls our attention to the bodies that presumably once wore those glimmering, angelic shoes. Such a sight is commonly presumed to be an indication of gang territory or violence. However, shoes dangling from wires don’t always indicate violence; they are sometimes evidence of a celebration, or even innocent moments of play. About the work, Shimoyama says: “The Grove is a meditation and reflection on power, territory, and death. Through the employment of craft materials in reference to the spontaneous memorial, The Grove becomes a fictitious future memorial to the still very flawed present. It consists of a small forest of bedazzled totem-like utility poles with embellished shoes and flowers dangling from the power lines, nodding towards cultural signifiers within urban communities. A deviation from my primarily representational painting practice, this work along with much of my sculptural practice intentionally lacks images of violence or Black individuals in pain, albeit an underlying reference. The Grove represents the processing of not only a singular, internal pain, but also the hope for healing from a larger shared plight amongst the black community.”