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Circus of Life
In the exhibition “Circus”, Levin aligns two seemingly unrelated images to create a new composition (the seamless visual effect is achieved by digital printing). The pairings are based on their inherent symbolism in reflecting the ironies of life that personify the beauty and richness of human existence. With respect yet in opposition to the 19th century Russian satirist, Kuzma Prudkov’s belief that “one cannot embrace the unembraceable”, Levin’s diptychs attempt to define the indefinable. They encourage new ways of seeing the sublime in a broader and deeper sense, and argue for the immortality of the artwork after its completion in the mind of the viewer. For example, the photograph “Eternity” may be considered a “stolen image” from the protagonists (sculptors working in a private studio in Jaipur) as well as a documentation of the photographer’s reality in that given moment. On a deeper level, however, it is a commentary about man’s obsession with immortality, and his search for it through physical and metaphysical means. In this sense, the photographer is an “observer of life” and his subject matter is the very essence of life. Levin’s self-defined style of “abstract photography” therefore suggests that meaning rests beyond the surface quality of the image, and therefore a successful image should be rendered as an ‘abstract reality’.
| Beauty in life and death is the subject that inspired artists and poets throughout centuries |
The group of Levin photographs dedicated to the beauty and its relation to everyday life is a serene contemplation.
Romanticized women forms juxtaposed against everyday places that are common but yet surreal once inhabited by the beautiful creatures with its own almost alien aesthetics. It is the perception of beauty and its influence on physical and mental arousal of the viewer that interest artist the most. Levin photographs without too much explicitness and provocation inspire mental attitudes and explore sublime humanity of the form-splendid and its relation to the mores of the society. Once more for Levin beauty-love-life-death is the relationship opened for questioning and presented to the viewer to form his own opinion and question norms.
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