“If I only have one life to live, let me live as a video tape.” —Les Levine Les Levine: Bio-Tech Rehearsals, 1965-1975 revisits the early, multi-faceted practices of Irish-Canadian artist Les Levine. Drawing extensively from the artist’s archive, the exhibition brings together his: early plastic disposables; remote-fabricated, systemsoriented, and “real time” environments; cybernetic sculptures, audio-surveillance, and other “body control systems” works. The exhibition screens sixteen of Levine’s early video projects ranging from Bum, a 1965 chronicle of the lives and testimonies of men living on New York’s Bowery, to later pieces, such as Landscape II, in which Levine directs and manipulates live editing effects within a television control room. Across Levine’s video experiments and in the audio pieces, press releases, posters, postcards, publications, photo-documents and other print-based works on display, the exhibition finds the artist examining, deploying, and interrupting different facets of information flow, the logics of which he understood intimately from his early work as a process designer. Indeed, in 1968 Levine was heralded by critic Jack Burnham as “the most consistent exponent of a systems esthetic.” His often-ironic engagement with the technologies and material products, as well as the post-Fordist systems and operations of the contemporary media-technical apparatus was directed both to the art world and to what he termed “living patterns.” His work consistently spoke to ambivalent mechanisms of institutional, environmental, and subjective regulation. Les Levine: Bio-Tech Rehearsals, 1965-1975 returns to this early decade of Levine’s work, excavating rarely shown works and documents and demonstrating his connection not only to Burnham but also to Gregory Battcock, William Burroughs, James Lee Byars, John Giorno, Jill Johnston, Charlemagne Palestine, and more. The epistemic nexus of industrial and information technologies with conceptual and institutional strategies that Levine forged during these decades retains a haunting contemporaneity as artists and designers continue to struggle with the shifting vicissitudes of an expansive apparatus of power.
A
02 Les Levine, Plug Assist 1, 1966. Installation view at Fischbach Gallery, New York, October 11 to 29, 1966, photographic print.
Plug Assist (1966), Star Series (1966-1968), and The Clean Machine (1968)
03 Cast for fabricating Plug Assist 2, photographic print.
Characterized by a mass production or factory aesthetic, Les Levine’s early plastic sculptures and environments experimented with industrial fabrication techniques, ironically playing upon the modernist dictum of truth to materials. Beyond celebrating the withdrawal of the artist’s hand, these works pointed to the necessarily conceptual role played by an artist in the creation of a work. Named after their manufacturing technique, Plug Assist 1 and Plug Assist 2 appeared as ghosted images of chairs and refrigerator-like forms, and were exhibited along with Star Machine and Disposables at Fischbach Gallery in 1966, his first one-man show in New York. Star Machine was the first of a series of environments made of air-blown clear Plexiglas “bubbles” that sought to undermine contemplative modes of viewing, positioning viewers as performers or “stars.” The series also included: Star Garden (A Place), exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art’s sculpture garden in April 1967; All-Star Cast, exhibited on the plaza of Viljo Revell’s Toronto City Hall in June 1967, at the Walker Art Center in September, and on the plaza of New York’s Time and Life Building in October; Black Star, shown at the 1968 Whitney Biennial; and, the multi-colored passage, Body Color, installed in New York University’s Loeb Student Center in 1968, and in the Jewish Museum exhibition A Plastic Presence in 1969. The Clean Machine was made from sixty identical, shiny white, pressure-formed, trapezoidal Uvex modules which projected into the space to create an almost pulsating rhythm as the visitor walked through the intentionally sterile environment, an environment that sought to remove “all signs and objects familiar to our eyes” and to create a new “type of relationship to time.” An accompanying work, Numbers Racket, was a print of the gallery space inviting others to “design” alternative configurations of Clean Machine’s Uvex modules.
04 Les Levine, Plug Assist 2, 1966, photographic print. 05 Les Levine, Plug Assist 1, 1966, photographic print. 06 Invitation to Les Levine: Scale Models for the Star Machine, Mini Star, The Star Garden, Super Star, All-Star Cast, Networks Star & Prime-Time Star at John Gibson Gallery, New York, 1968. 07 Contact sheet of Les Levine, All-Star Cast, installed at Toronto City Hall as part of Sculpture ’67, 1967. 08 Les Levine, model of Star Garden (A Place), 1967, photographic print. 09 Les Levine, Star Machine, 1966. Installation view at Fischbach Gallery, New York, October 11 to 29, 1966, photographic print. 10 Les Levine, All-Star Cast (A Place), 1967. Installation view at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1967, photographic print. 11 Les Levine, Black Star, 1969, photographic print. 12 Les Levine, Body Color, 1969. Installation view at New York University, Loeb Student Center, New York, two photographic prints from 35mm slides. 13 Press release for The Clean Machine at Fischbach Gallery, New York, February 20, 1968. 14 Invitation to The Clean Machine at Fischbach Gallery, New York, February 24 to March 21, 1968.
01 Invitation to Les Levine exhibition at Fischbach Gallery, New York, October 11 to 29, 1966.
15 Les Levine, The Clean Machine, 1968. Installation view at Fischbach Gallery, New York, February 24 to March 21, 1968, photographic print.
A
16 Press release for The Clean Machine at Fischbach Gallery, New York, February 24, 1968.
11 to October 29, 1966, two photographic prints.
17 Reproductions of Les Levine, Numbers Racket, 1968, from “Press Kit” for Les Levine Copies Everyone, Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1970. B
09 Les Levine, “Plan for Disposables Wall 8’ x 11’,” The Aspen Times, August 3, 1967. C
Disposables (1965-1969) Initially fabricated from packaging plastic like that used for Styrofoam cups, and later from more rigid, colorful Uvex, a cellulose, acetate, butyrate plastic, Levine’s 12” x 12” Disposables were produced in Levine’s studio using a vacuum forming process over everyday objects and other molds. Conceived not as individual works but as components of an art system to be completed by the purchaser and discarded when their aesthetic function had waned, the units were sold for $3 a piece and came as an unlimited edition, hence manifesting the logic of “supply and demand.” 01 Definition of Disposables, typed document, undated. 02 Les Levine, Disposables, 1966. Installation view at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1967, photographic print. 03 Les Levine, Disposable Environment, 1967. Installation view at Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1967. 04 Les Levine, Disposables, 1966. Installation view at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1967, photographic print from 35mm slide. 05 Les Levine, Star Machine and Disposables, 1966. Installation view at the National Gallery, Ottawa, 1967, photographic print from 35mm slide. 06 Les Levine, Disposables, 1966. Installation view at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1967, photographic print from 35mm slide. 07 Les Levine, Disposables, 1966. Installation view at Fischbach Gallery, New York, October
08 List of people who bought Disposables at Fischbach Gallery, October 11, 1966.
Slipcover and Critic (1966-1967) A disposable room, Slipcover was first installed at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, in 1966 then reconfigured for New York’s Architectural League the next year as part of the Environments series launched by architect Ulrich Franzen, recently appointed as director of the League. Distinctly fluid or psychedelic in character, this electronically programmed environment had floors, walls, and ceilings surfaced with vinyl-lined Mirro-Brite, a highly reflective metalized polyester Mylar film, along with eight Mirro-Brite pillows which inflated to the point of almost filling the gallery spaces, then deflated in a preprogrammed sequence. In addition, Levine projected 35 mm slides onto the mirror-like surfaces, which multiply reflected throughout the environment. This visual supplementation also included a time-delayed, closed circuit audio-visual feed capturing visitors entering the space and broadcasting them elsewhere within the gallery. This panel also features the audio channel of Critic, wherein Levine invited thirteen contemporary critics to speak briefly on criticism. Critic was included in a series of three events at NYU’s Loeb Student Center along with Robert Rauschenberg’s Outskirts and John Giorno’s Raspberry. 01 Press release for Slipcover, The Architectural League, New York, April 20, 1967. 02 Les Levine, Slipcover, 1966. Installation view at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, September 23 to October 23, 1966, photographic print. 03 Les Levine, Slipcover, 1966. Installation view at The Architectural League, New York, April 20 to May 22, 1967, photographic print.
A–C
04 Les Levine, Slipcover, 1966. Installation view at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, September 23 to October 23, 1966, photographic print.
rendering them part of the circuit. It also had closed circuit television monitors feeding back information within the room. Photon: Strangeness 4 immersed visitors in a field of moving fish eye mirrors with attached fluorescent rods which moved randomly away from people and objects, while capturing the room in their reflection. A pair of vidicon cameras also fed images of the room back to viewers. Using stepladders as its physical infrastructure, a slightly later work, Chain of Command, produced a self-referential loop between a slide projector and a closed circuit television set up, the latter’s two monitors broadcasting different formal translations of the projected celluloid images.
05 Les Levine, Slipcover, 1966. Installation views at The Architectural League, New York, April 20 to May 22, 1967, two photographic prints. 06 Les Levine, Slipcover, 1966. Installation views at Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, September 23 to October 23, 1966, nine photographic prints from 35mm slides. 07 Brochure for Slipcover (A Place) by Les Levine, Art Gallery of Ontario, September 23 to October 23, 1966.
01 Les Levine, Electric Shock, 1968, photographic print.
08 Contact Sheet of video stills from Les Levine, Critic, 1966.
02 Les Levine, Electric Shock, 1968, five photographic prints from 35 mm slides.
09 Audio track for Les Levine, Critic, 1966. Voices of Michael Benedikt, Ted Berrigan, David Bourdon, Nicholas Callas, John Gruen, Jill Johnston, Michael Kirby, Max Kozloff, Annette Michelson, Toby Mussman, Brian O’Doherty, John Perreault, Irving Sandler, Peter Schjeldahl, and Gene Swenson.
03 Les Levine, Photon: Strangeness 4, 1968. Installation view at “Intermedia ’68,” organized by John Brockman Associates, three photographic prints. 04 Les Levine, Photon: Strangeness 4, 1968, six photographic prints from 35mm slides.
10–11 Poster and program for Three Events: Outskirts by Robert Rauschenberg, Critic by Les Levine, and Raspberry by John Giorno, at New York University, Loeb Student Center, March 7, 1967.
05 Les Levine, Chain of Command, 1971. Installation view at Downtown Fischbach Gallery, New York, photographic print. 06 Les Levine, Chain of Command, 1971. Installation view at Downtown Fischbach Gallery, New York, photographic print from 35mm slide.
D Electric Shock (1968), Photon: Strangeness 4 (1968), and Chain of Command (1971) Departing from plastic, Levine continued his shift from privileging visual mediation to physical reaction with two energy flow environments: Electric Shock and Photon: Strangeness 4, the latter a collaboration with George Fan, applied physicist and research director at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York. In Electric Shock a field of overhead wires carried high frequency static electricity that caused a mild shock when people came in close contact with each other in the space, effectively
07 Les Levine, Chain of Command, 1971. Installation view at Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1971, photographic print. E The Big Eye (1968), Iris (1968), Contact (1969), and three works exhibited in Software: Information Technology: its New Meaning for Art (1970) In April and May of 1968, Levine presented a “television series” at The Architectural
C–E
League, featuring five of his videos—The Nude Model, Destruction in Art, Clothing and the Law, Architecture, and The London Scene. In addition to the prerecorded tapes shown on large monitors, a closed-circuit television set up fed back live images of viewers watching the tapes on a further monitor. Iris and Contact were cybernetic television sculptures through which people saw themselves from different perspectives on banks of closed-circuit video monitors, the televisual images dissolving and switching and the people, in Levine’s words, becoming the “software.” This panel also brings together the three works Levine showed in Jack Burnham’s 1970 exhibition at the Jewish Museum, Software: Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art: Wire Tap, A.I.R. and Systems Burn-off X Residual Software. A surveillance project, Wire Tap was earlier on show at Isaacs Gallery and Fischbach Gallery, and consisted of twelve speakers playing incoming and outgoing telephone conversations surreptitiously recorded in the artist’s studio, seeking to expose his means of working within the art world and beyond it. Installed as a bank of television monitors mounted on a wall of rough bricks, A.I.R. presented video footage of the artist’s studio activities. Systems Burn-off X Residual Software was a conceptual work related to the artist’s experience of an “art junket,” a plane trip that took critics and other members of the press to the opening of the Earth Art exhibition at Cornell University in 1969, curated by Willoughby Sharp. Premiered at the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago, and made up of numerous copies of photographs randomly distributed on the floor, covered in Jello, and stuck to the wall with chewing gum, the work was conceived as disposable, and spoke to non-material and informatic residues, and media substrates, as they both informed and remained within any system, in this case following an art world event. 01 Jack Burnham, Software. Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art (New York: Jewish Museum, 1970). The catalog includes Les Levine’s Systems Burn-off X Residual Software, A.I.R., and Wire Tap. 02 Press release for Wire Tap, Fischbach Gallery, New York, May 16, 1970.
03 Wire Tap by Les Levine, vol. 1, 2, 3, and 4, cassettes and audio tracks, 1969-1975. 04 Les Levine, Wire Tap, 1970, two photographic prints from 35 mm slides. 05 Les Levine, A.I.R., 1970. Installation view of Software exhibition at the Jewish Museum, New York, curated by Jack Burnham, New York, September 16 to November 8, 1970, photographic print. 06 Les Levine, Systems Burn-Off X Residual Software, 1969. Installation view at Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago, 1969, photographic print from 35mm slide. 07–08 Invitations and poster for The Big Eye television series by Les Levine at The Architectural League of New York, 1968. 09 Press release for The Big Eye television series by Les Levine at The Architectural League of New York, April 19, 1968. 10 Postcard of Les Levine, Iris Print-Out, 1968. 11 Les Levine, Iris, 1968, photographic print. 12 Les Levine, Iris, 1968, photographic print from 35mm slide. 13 Les Levine, Contact, 1969. Installation view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, April 19 to May 25, 1969, photographic print. 14 Les Levine, Contact, 1969. Installation view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1969, photographic print from 35 mm slide. F The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster (1971-1973) In 1971, funded by The Architectural League, Les Levine travelled to Ulster province in Northern Ireland with Catherine Kanai to document the disasters of the civil war. Marking an overtly political turn in the artist’s work, The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster
E–F
was a multi-media exhibition and art-documentary film shown at Finch College Museum of Art from December 1972 through February 1973. In addition to the film, the exhibition had four sections: “The People,” a room of captioned, blown up photographs of protagonists on many sides of the struggle, set behind a barricade-like scrim laced with barbed wire reminiscent of the Long Kesh internment camp and other wartime sites; “Their Culture,” a gallery documenting everyday life and urban environments in Belfast through photographs and slide projections, along with recordings of Republican Army songs and Protestant battle cries and folk art ephemera such as embroidered handkerchiefs, some made by prisoner in internment camps; “Papers and Documents,” which included books, news clippings, and interviews documenting the many positions of Catholics, Protestants and soldiers in the British Army, along with articles on Northern Ireland published by Levine in the Village Voice; and “High Noise Torture Chamber,” a darkened room with an audio track demonstrating the British military’s use of a weapon of psychological torture that forcibly and violently deprived the prisoner of external stimuli. 01 Les Levine, The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster, 1971-1973, twenty-eight photographic prints.
exhibition at Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, Levine produced a series of prints and print-media works derived from earlier artworks, along with a remarkable Press Kit in lieu of a catalog. Full of press releases, media coverage, print outputs, and other copies of his work, it offered a sort of mini-retrospective refracted through Levine’s circulation within the apparatus of the media and its material substrates. Among the material included was an excerpt of Red Tape: To Engage the University in a Useless Task Which Will Allow It To Expose a Working Model of Its Own System, a hilarious project commissioned by University of Toronto’s Hart House gallery. Levine documented the process of bringing piles of heavy buildings materials into an outdoor quadrangle at the University, with the purported aim of suspending them 50 feet in the air, along with the interruptions to, and ending of the installation process by wardens and other officials. He collected transcripts of telephone conversations, photographs, correspondence, and press clippings in a working folder intended as material for a publication with a preface by Jack Burnham. Another short excerpt appeared in 1970 in Design Quarterly’s famous special issue on Conceptual Architecture, guest edited by John Margolies but the book was never realized. Red Tape has, however, been published for the first time on the occasion of Les Levine: Bio-tech Rehearsals, 1965-1975.
02 The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster, 1971-73, seventy-six digitized 35mm slides.
01 “Press Kit” from Les Levine Copies Everyone at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1970, digital print.
03–04 Poster and Invitation to The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster at The Finch College Museum of Art, New York, 1972.
02 Title page of “Press Kit” from Les Levine Copies Everyone at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, October 20 to November 9, 1970.
05 Audio for “High Noise Torture Chamber” section of exhibition The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster at The Finch College Museum of Art, New York, 1972.
03 “Wave Hill Poetry Events,” Riverdale, New York, September 7, 1969, page 52 of “Press Kit” from Les Levine Copies Everyone.
G Press Kit for Les Levine Copies Everyone (1970) and Red Tape (1970) For Les Levine Copies Everyone, a 1970
04 “News from Les Levine: the process of elimination,” Glendon Campus Art Gallery, York University, Toronto, 1968, page 53 of “Press Kit” from Les Levine Copies Everyone. 05 Les Levine, Red Tape, 1970, pages from working folder.
F–G
Press release for Slipcover, The Architectural League of New York, 1967. Page 1 of 2.
Press release for The Clean Machine at Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1968.
Press release for Photon: Strangeness 4 for Intermedia ’68, 1968.
Press release for The Big Eye television series by Les Levine at The Architectural League of New York, 1968. Page 1 of 2.
Press release for the opening of Levine’s Restaurant at 19th St. & Park Ave. South, New York, 1969. Page 1 and 2 of 3.
Press release for Your Worst Work at The Architectural League of New York, 1969.
Press release for Culture Hero preview at Levine’s Restaurant, 1969. Page 1 of 2.
Press release for Wire Tap, Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1970.
H Levine’s Restaurant (1969-1970) and Your Worst Work (1969) On St. Patrick’s Day 1969, restauranteur Mickey Ruskin, owner of the legendary Max’s Kansas City, launched Levine’s Restaurant on the corner of Park Avenue South and 19th Street. Billed as New York’s first Irish-Jewish Canadian restaurant, and troping on the artist and his life, Levine’s had shamrock green table cloths and uniforms to match, along with oversized pale green menus featuring Levine amidst his last disposable plastic work, Process of Elimination of 1968, installed on a vacant lot near NYU. Designed by literary agent and “McLuhanesque entrepreneur” John Brockman, Levine’s also harbored a Levine closed-circuit video system with an 8 second playback delay. In late 1969, Levine, in his capacity as Vice President for Sculpture at The Architectural League, rethought the annual members’ show as Your Worst Work. He invited League members to submit a work that they were “not proud of,” along with a photograph, biographical statement, and paragraph explaining why it was considered to be his or her worst work. Introducing work that would typically not surface into the gallery space, and with a large-format newsprint catalog, it aimed to “question the basis of taste in Western culture.” 01 Press release for the opening of Levine’s Restaurant at 19th St. & Park Ave. South, New York, 1969.
03 Exterior view of Levine’s Restaurant, 1969, photographic print.
05 Menu of Levine’s Restaurant, 1969. 06 Entry form for Your Worst Work, the 1969 membership show of The Architectural League, organized by Les Levine. 07 Les Levine, letter to Architectural
Visitors include choreographer Trisha Brown and artist Marjorie Strider.
05 Press release, “Services for the After Art Period,” Museum of Mott Art Inc., 1974.
08 Les Levine, Your Worst Work, catalog for the 1969 membership show of The Architectural League.
K
06 Invitation for The Last Book of Life, June 22 to Friday 28, 1974.
I Culture Hero (1969-1970) Published by Levine, Culture Hero was a “fanzine” of the arts. Devoted to “personalities in the arts,” and intentionally gossipy, it adopted a large newsprint format, bold graphics, and privileged interviews and photo essays as the most effective vehicles of information to get art on the newsstands. It even included a column by John Giorno called Vitamin G. Less an art magazine than an underground zine, Culture Hero ironically pointed to a shift in attention within the art world from galleries to magazines and from art works to art personalities. 01 Culture Hero: A fanzine of Stars of The Superworld, vol. I, no. 1, 1969. Cover features Allen Ginsberg, Peter Fonda, Monty Hall, and Joy Bang. 02 Culture Hero: A fanzine of Stars of The Superworld, vol. I, no. 2, 1969. Cover features John and Mimi. 03 Culture Hero: A fanzine of Stars of The Superworld, vol. I, no. 3 & 4, 1970. Jill Johnston Exposed: Special Issue.
02 Contact sheet of Levine’s Restaurant, 1969.
04 Levine’s Restaurant, 1969, two photographic prints from 35mm slides.
League’s members about Your Worst Work, the 1969 membership show, August 5, 1969.
04 Culture Hero: A fanzine of Stars of The Superworld, vol. I, no. 5., 1970. Cover features Les Levine, Merry Cambodia and a Happy New War, 1970. J Slipcover film Wall projection. Documentary footage of Slipcover opening at The Architectural League of New York on April 20, 1967, transferred to digital from 16mm film. Filmmaker unknown.
H–J
Museum of Mott Art (1970-present) Levine founded the Museum of Mott Art in 1970 as a “consultant service organization, the purpose of which is to provide information and consultation services to the fine arts profession and their associates.” Enjoying MoMA as its implied acronym, the museum took its name from its first location at 181 Mott Street, New York. Acting as President, Levine soon published the first Catalog of Services 1971, featuring sixty-five items that offered advice ranging from “How to Become an Artist’s Spouse” (fee $30) and “How to Avoid Becoming an Artist’s Spouse” (fee $50) to “How to Become a Museum Curator” (fee $30) and “Dealing with Artists—for Dealers” (fee $35). Three years later the Museum updated its services, adding sixty-two new items in Catalog of After Art Services 1974 along with a manifesto “Art is Dead.” Ranging from “How to Stop Being an Artist” (fee per job) and “Language Service for Language Artists” (fee per hour) to “How to Use Politics” (fee $36) and “Spying Service” (fee per job) it announced, “Art no longer provides us with information or experience that is either essential or valuable to our development as conscious beings.” In addition to offering services, the Museum held Mott Art Hearings, videotaped, mock-judicial investigations about various facets of the art world. 01 Press release for Culture Hero preview at Levine’s Restaurant, 1969. 02 Press release, “Conditions of Service and Consultation,” Museum of Mott Art Inc., undated. 03 Press release, “Museum of Mott Art Media Library Now Open to the Public,” Museum of Mott Art Inc., undated. 04 Press release, “Artists Call for National ‘Cry-in’,” Museum of Mott Art Inc. + Giorno Poetry Systems, 1972.
07 Notice of 20% price increase for services of Museum of Mott Art Inc., January 1, 1974. 08 Mott Art Hearings, performance with closed circuit video, 1971. Les Levine with art critic Gregory Battcock, 1971, photographic print. 09 Catalogue of Services, Museum of Mott Art Inc. and Protetch-Rivkin, 1971. 10 Catalogue of After Art Services, Museum of Mott Art Inc., 1974. 11 Mott Art Hearings at Museum of Mott Art Inc., New York, 1971, three photographic prints from 35mm slides. 12 Audio from Museum of Mott Art installation, During the First Moment of Your Death: Remember, featuring William Burroughs reading Levine’s script, c. 1975, first shown at M.L. D’Arc Gallery, New York, 1976. L Body Control Systems (1970) An exhibition at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, Body Control Systems brought together audio, video, environment, drawings, and printbased works speculating on “the body as a universal technological and ecological system.” Focused on various inputs—pollution, temperature, smell, sound, light, computerized information, trash, sex—the exhibition components spoke to the body-technology nexus as it operated both within the art world and beyond it. With visitors invited to wear masks emblazoned with the words “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution,” the show included: two recent video works, John and Mimi’s Book of Love and Topesthesia (described under the section on Video); Wire Tap, the audio-surveillance work included in the exhibition Software; Fecaloids, a shred-
J–L
ding machine “capable of chewing up and spitting out any dry material” thereby turning it into part of the art, which in turn could be discarded at will; Monuments, drawings of the artist executed in the manner of famous artists; Nebulizers, an installation of synthetic smells released into the environment; Signature Print Outs, quite literally computer print outs analyzing the artist’s signature; and two environments, Thermotaxis, which imparted a “thermoshock” to the body in a highly cooled room, and White Sight, two high intensity sodium vapor lights which transformed all color in the room to black and white, also flattening the reception of object.
1969 exhibition at London’s Rowan Gallery featuring an image he used repeatedly in the late 1960s: in it Levine is shown speaking on the telephone, ordering the fabrication of his plastic bubbles.
01 Press release for Body Control Systems, Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, April 1970.
04 One-Gun Video, new video tapes by Les Levine at Anthology Film Archives, 1975.
02 Les Levine, The Fecaloids, 1970, photographic print.
05 Les Levine, letterhead paper designed for art critic David Bourdon, undated.
03 Face mask for Body Control Systems at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1970.
06 Les Levine, “advertisement” poster for exhibition at Blue Barn Gallery, Ottawa, October 28 to November 14, 1964.
04 Invitation to Body Control Systems at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, April 7 to April 27, 1970. 05 Les Levine, Body Control Systems, 1970. John and Mimi wearing face masks, photographic print. 06 Les Levine, John and Mimi’s Book of Love (1969), four video stills. 07 Les Levine, Thermotaxis, Nebulizers, and The Fecaloids, 1970. Installation view at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, 1970, three photographic prints from 35mm slides.
01 Les Levine, LXVI, Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, November 18 to December 10, 1965, poster. 02 Merry Cambodia and a Happy New War, postcard, 1970. 03 Les Levine, “advertisement” poster for his 1964 exhibition at Hart House, University of Toronto.
07 Les Levine, Sculpture, Rowan gallery, London, 1969, announcement. 08 John Giorno, Dial-a-poem, The Architectural League, New York, 1969, cover by Les Levine. 09 Les Levine, Disposable, Lite, Works, etc, Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1967. 10 Les Levine, Wedges!!! The Disposable Experience, undated.
M Graphic Works and Ephemera In addition to realizing art works, Levine produced some remarkable graphic ephemera, from “advertisements” featuring the artist’s image (not the work on display) to announce upcoming exhibitions, to postcards such as “Merry Cambodia and a Happy New War” of 1970 and even letterhead designed for art critic David Bourdon. Among the materials displayed here, is an announcement for a
Videos Levine’s wide-ranging early video practice is presented through a selection of sixteen tapes, with two tapes per monitor. They range from works investigating the formal televisual aspects of video to those investigating video as a mode of surveillance, documentation of evidence, and environmental research. 01 Bum (1965), 50 mins. The artist talks to men living on New York’s Bowery about their lives, past and present, eliciting an array of video testimonies and performances, and documenting the gritty urban environment. 02 I am an Artist (1975), 60 mins. The artist walks along New York’s Bowery, explaining to the video camera that he cannot get involved in social problems because he is an artist, and resisting men on the Bowery who attempt to engage him. 03 Clothing and the Law (1967), 60 mins. A conversation between Jill Johnston, dance critic for the Village Voice, and artist James Lee Byars; ensconced in one of Byars’ communal garments, also known as “performable objects,” or “wearable sculptures,” they discuss this body covering and its social effects as well as their respective practices as critic and artist. Included in The Big Eye, a “television series” Levine curated at The Architectural League in April and May 1968. 04 The London Scene (1968), 22 mins. British art critic Charlotte Townsend and art student Oreil Glock discuss the state of popular culture and the art world in supposedly hip, new wave London, recounting the backlash against Jim Dine’s work at the Robert Fraser Gallery and the rigged drug charges against Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Included in The Big Eye. 05 Blank (1968), 60 mins. German-born cabaret actress and artist Lil Picard and 22-year old Bruce Wolmer, later to become an art editor, discuss their lives, clothes, and sexual and romantic exploits while the screen remains blank.
L–M
06 The Dealer (1968), 57 mins. The artist visits art dealer Molly Barnes and her Los Angeles gallery, filming conversations between Barnes and other dealers, as well as between critics and artists speaking about the functioning of the art market, art, and the fantasy-oriented Los Angeles scene. 07 John & Mimi’s Book of Love (1969), 50 mins. Married swingers and architects John and Mimi discuss video footage of themselves demonstrating multiple permutations of (almost mechanical) sexual acts. Included in Levine’s exhibition Body Control Systems at Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, April 1970. 08 Topesthesia I (1970), 25 mins. Close up shots of a number of human eyes responding to changes in environmental temperature, set to bird sounds. Included in the exhibition Body Control Systems. 09 Columbia (1969), 60 mins. Columbia architecture students discuss the revolutionary social and pedagogical goals, and the media distortion of their recent strike and occupation of Avery Hall in April and May of 1968, focusing on the radicalization created by police brutality during their arrests and their reading of the institutions they were fighting to transform. Shot in May 1968. 10 Mott Art Hearings (1970), 60 mins. Staged as judicial hearings, in this case on art education, Les Levine interrogates junior faculty and students at the Art Institute of Chicago on behalf of the Museum of Mott Art Inc. in 1970. 11 Mott Art Hearings (1970), 60 mins. Performance artist and musician Charlemagne Palestine attempts to undermine the judicial “hearing” format of Levine’s Mott Art Hearings series by bringing in Greek moussaka, cognac, and his stuffed “fetish” animals and speaking to the apparatus of the videotaped performance. 12 Mott Art Hearings (1974), 60 mins. Mott Art Hearing featuring art critic Gregory Battcock, discussing the logistics of an upcoming trip to Colorado, with Levine suggesting he visits Naropa Institute in Boulder,
where Richard Alpert, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs were teaching. 13 The Troubles: An Artist’s Document of Ulster (1972), 55 mins. 16mm film transferred to video. Levine’s witnessing of the civil war in Northern Ireland, documented during a one-month stay in Ulster and with voice over narrative by the artist. Funded by The Architectural League and screened as part of an exhibition of the same title at the Finch College Museum of Art in New York in December 1972. 14 Outside the Republican Convention (1972), 25 mins. 16mm film transferred to video. A documentary of the unofficial and countercultural events taking place outside the Republican Convention in Miami, featuring John Giorno, and with Allen Ginsberg singing. 15 Spacewalk (1972), 30 mins. 16mm film transferred to video. The artist explores his loft, moving the camera around on a dolly to expose the particularities of the space and its contents, while discussing the boredom of this kind of film and expressing a shift from estrangement to annoyance to questioning whether he had chosen the space or if it had chosen him. 16 Landscape II (1975), 30 mins. The artist is in the TV control room at Patterson College, New Jersey, directing three cameramen outside in the landscape and a fourth in the control room, staged as a formal demonstration of the television’s production mechanisms and editing effects.
Curators: Felicity Scott and Mark Wasiuta Assistant Curators: Adam Bandler and Florencia Alvarez Pacheco Director of Exhibitions: Mark Wasiuta Exhibitions Coordinator: Adam Bandler Assistant Exhibitions Coordinator: Florencia Alvarez Pacheco Exhibition design: Adam Bandler and Mark Wasiuta M.Arch Exhibitions Assistants: Becca Book and Grete Grubelich CCCP Exhibitions Assistant: Tania Tovar Torres M.Arch Exhibitions Crew: Valentina Flora Angelucci, Angelina Andriani Putri, Cameron Dean Cortez, Jiangyu Chen, Andrea Ayleen Chiney, Eugene Sen Chun Ong, Charles Hajj, Bo He, Edward Joseph Palka, Miranda Shugars, Ilijana Soldan, Zachary Ross White, Haochang Yu, Yuting Zhang CCCP Exhibitions Crew: Maite Borjabad, Pedro Ceñal Murga, Rosana Elkhatib, Ruishi Ge, Joachim Hackl, Robin Hartanto, Chi-Chia Hou, Sara McGillivray, Iara Pimenta Graphic design: MTWTF