Les Levine (born 1935) is a naturalized American Irish artist known as a pioneer of
video art
Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
and as a
conceptual art
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
ist working with mass communication. In 1967, Levine won first prize for sculpture in the Canadian Sculpture Biennial.
[Les Levine Bio](_blank)
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Life and work
A graduate of the Central School of Art and Design
The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and ...
in London, Levine first moved to Canada in 1960. He eventually settled in New York City in 1964 and became a resident artist at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design or NSCAD, is a public art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that offers bachelor's and master's degrees. The univ ...
in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348 ...
in 1973. Early in his career, Levine introduced the idea of a disposable art and was given the nickname Plastic Man.
In 1965, Levine, with Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...
, were among the first artists to buy and use portapak
A Portapak is a battery-powered, self-contained video tape analog recording system. Introduced to the market in 1967, it could be carried and operated by one person.
Earlier television cameras were large and heavy, required a specialized vehicle ...
s. Thus he was one of the first artists to try television as a medium for the dissemination of art. He has also used the telephone for this purpose, as well.
In 1969 he exhibited ''White Sight'' at the Fischbach Gallery, a work consisting of a room as the inside of a featureless whitecube illuminated by two bright sodium vapour lights. This meant that the spectator was confronted with their own act of looking presented as an artifact. The installation was also included as a feature for a charity ball at the New York Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, to attend which museum patrons had to pay $75 per couple. Whilst Levine regarded the installation as a great success, this view was not shared by all the patrons. The yellow light drained the women's dresses of color. One visitor said: "All the men looked as if they have been dead for two centuries. All the women looked like their grandmothers. The beautiful ladies fled within one minute." One of these accused Levine of making the museum "look ugly and silly" and promptly transformed the artwork by pulling the main light switch. In 1984, Levine produced the short film ''Made in New York'' in collaboration with fashion designer Willi Smith
Willi Donnell Smith (February 29, 1948 – April 17, 1987) was an American fashion designer. At the time of his death, Smith was regarded as one of the most successful African-American designers in the fashion industry. His company, WilliW ...
. He also designed a T-shirt for Smith’s label WilliWear Productions that was featured in the film.
Levine has written on art for ''Arts'', The ''Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'', '' Art in America'' and the '' Saturday Review''.
He was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
Fellowship in 1974 and again in 1980.
Reference material
''Expanded Cinema {{italic title
''Expanded Cinema'' by Gene Youngblood (1970), the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts.Manovich, Lev. 2002. "Ten Key Texts on Digital Art: 1970–2000". Leonardo. 35 (5) ...
'' by Gene Youngblood
Gene Youngblood (May 30, 1942 – April 6, 2021) was an American theorist of media arts and politics, and a respected scholar in the history and theory of alternative cinemas. His best-known book, ''Expanded Cinema'', was the first to consider vi ...
(pp. 337–344). ''Beyond Modern Sculpture'' by Jack Burnham
Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 - February 25, 2019) was an American writer and theorist of art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland. He is one of the mai ...
, ''The Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art'' Simon Schuster, ''Art and the Future'' by Douglass Davis, ''Science and Technology in the Arts'' by Stewart Kranz, ''Innovative Printmaking'' by Theima P. Newman and ''On Photography
''On Photography'' is a 1977 collection of essays by Susan Sontag. It originally appeared as a series of essays in the ''New York Review of Books'' between 1973 and 1977.
Contents
In the book, Sontag expresses her views on the history and pres ...
'' by Susan Sontag.
Footnotes
Further reading
* Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito
Jon Ippolito is an artist, educator, new media scholar, and former curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Ippolito studied astrophysics and painting in the early 1980s, then pursued Internet art in the 1990s. His works explore digitally indu ...
, ''The Edge of Art'', Thames & Hudson Ltd
* Frank Popper
Frank Popper (17 April 1918 – 12 July 2020) was a Czech-born French-British historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He was decorated with the medal of the L ...
, ''From Technological to Virtual Art'', MIT Press
* , ''Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age'' Routledge 2004
* Edmond Couchot
Edmond Couchot (16 August 1932 – 26 December 2020) was a French digital artist and art theoretician who taught at the University Paris VIII.
Life and work
Couchot was a Doctor of aesthetics in the visual arts. From 1982-2000 he headed the depar ...
, ''Des Images, du temps et des machines'', édité Actes Sud, 2007
* Fred Forest
Fred Forest (born July 6, 1933 in Mascara, French Algeria) is a French new media artist making use of video, photography, the printed press, mail, radio, television, telephone, telematics, and the internet in a wide range of installations, perform ...
, ''Art et Internet'', Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi
* Edward A. Shanken, ''Art and Electronic Media''. London: Phaidon, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Les
1935 births
Living people
American conceptual artists
Artists from New York (state)
Mass media theorists
New media artists
Postmodern artists
Irish artists
Irish contemporary artists