Art Foregrounding artifice “History: Photographs by David Levinthal” THROUGH MAY 24 GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE, 900 EAST AVENUE TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, 10 A.M. TO 5 P.M., SUNDAY, 11 A.M. TO 5 P.M. $5-$14 | 271-3361 | EASTMANHOUSE.ORG
House. The images recall the memory and atmosphere of what they reference, she says. And though some reference specific moments made immortal through countless cultural mentions, those too are nonspecific. In the first room, the “History”
[ REVIEW ] BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
Much like photography, accounts of the past have a tendency to project a sense of authority. We may absorb each as bare fact, instead of what it really is: an account, a version, a distortion through an individual or cultural lens. The current exhibit of David Levinthal’s photographs in the Eastman House’s Project Gallery explores how our understanding of historic events, photography, and our imagination inevitably intermingle by spotlighting toy figures as cultural artifacts, and by not entirely hiding what they are. Thirteen of the 80 photographs in Levinthal’s “History” series fill two rooms, their massive scale is a reference to the genre of immense history paintings popular in the 16th through 18th centuries. “History” refers not only to moments in time, but also to this genre of cherished, morally-uplifting, often patriotic themes that we pass down though historic anecdote in lecture and art. But here, the artist raises questions of subjectivity in the recounting. Levinthal launched his career with “Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43,” a book of sepia-toned images of battle, drawn from photo-journalistic representations of World War II, and recreated with figurines and hand-built dioramas. The 1977 book was made in collaboration with Garry Trudeau (the Doonesbury cartoonist), and was a fictional documentary account, which included select archival materials, such as letters from the era. Eastman House hosted the first exhibition of this work in 1978, and collected some of the photographs from the series. All these years later, Levinthal is back, with more images depicting pivotal moments plucked from the place where history and cultural mythology intersect. “None of his work is an exact duplication of anything specific,” says Lisa Hostetler, Curator-in-Charge of the Department of Photography at Eastman 22 CITY MARCH 18-24, 2015
series overlaps with some images from Levinthal’s series on the Wild West. These works, pinpointing not moments in history, but scenes from national folklore, explore “America’s sense of its own identity, myths of freedom, individualism, and lawlessness, but undergirded by moral code,” Hostetler says. In “Alamo,” men tussle atop “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” is one of many images in “History: Photographs by David Levinthal,” currently on view a shell-shocked fort. “Gunfight at George Eastman House. PHOTO PROVIDED at the O.K. Corral” freezes the Particular moments from our American white horse. Here, peaks rise behind chaos in the famed 30-second history are explored in “Washington the subject, and his cape and the horse’s battle between outlaws and lawmen. Here, Crossing the Delaware,” and the ominous tail roar in the cold wind, and as in the eight figures hunker, aim to shoot, fall car ride in “Dallas, 1963,” which is painting, Napoleon’s likely grimace is backward, or prepare to bolt. A hat and a replaced by a plastic mask of calm. In the probably (and perhaps appropriately) the boot fly off a man as he hits a wall. Details cell phone tour, Levinthal states that his of weeds growing against a shamble-y fence, most blur-obscured scene, but instantly recognizable via Jackie’s iconic pink earliest memory of this subject is of seeing a dusty ground, and a leaning wagon wheel the image in a Courvoisier ad in The New pillbox hat. suggest an authentic setting, even while a Yorker magazine. The famous flag raising of “Iwo Jima” close look reveals plastic expressions. Two images, hung on walls opposite is resurrected here, on an island of rubble Many of the toys Levithal works with from one another, focus not on historic raised against a pristine blue sky. These come with their own sense of action: a sorts of scenes are etched into our memories individuals, but on containers pregnant flowing cape here, a waving flag there. with doom. In “Fall of Troy,” the gilded repeatedly, and what we’ve seen over years But he’s an expert at suggested arrested gift horse dominates the fore, with affect how we see the piece, Hostetler says. motion where there is none, through the indistinct columns and hesitant citizens use of lighting, focus, and props, like in We end up drawing not only on what looking on in the background. The scene “Helicopter,” from his “Vietnam” series. we see in Levinthal’s print, but also from depicts a tense moment, like immediately Struck by the opening of the film cultural memory. This particular piece before a bomb explodes. “Apocalypse Now,” Levinthal recreated is interesting because it’s since come out The other image is “The Titanic,” as the scene’s feeling with a toy chopper, that the famous moment was staged for a it would have been seen from a short photographed darkly and intimate against photographer after the original flag raising distance on the night of the disaster: No an angry, smoke-red atmosphere. In the happened, unwitnessed. The romance of cinematic lights, no star-crossed romance, blurred background, a rain of explosions is our history is one big manipulation. just the ship jutting at a terrifying angle suggested with an out-of-focus, shimmering While the first room tackles scenes from the icy water, hopeless and almost silk fabric catching the light just-so. from American History, the second Levinthal not only points out the invisible in the murky night. room gets a bit worldlier. In “World War artifice of the constructions in the pictures, Levinthal will give a lecture and I, The Somme,” the scale of senseless but also the artifice in the photographic book-signing at Eastman House horror is depicted with just two dirty transcription of history. figures of soldiers, one carrying the other, on April 2, and on April 19, the house will host a kids’ day with a “Throughout his career, he’s used toys stumbling through a wasteland of rubble hands-on photography activity. Visit as a way to get at the fungibility of ideas,” as far as the eye can see. eastmanhouse.org for more information. Hostetler says. “Children play with toys, Levinthal’s recreation of the iconic and they make up fantasies and act them Jacques Louis David painting of “Napoleon out.” It’s culturally important to soak up Crossing the Alps” uses a toy that is clearly and remember history, she says, but we gain based off the same work: the leader points the mistaken illusion that we understand it. onward, in perfect control of a rearing