Arts & Culture

Arts&Culture Myth & memory in photographer's toy dioramas

An interview with David Levinthal

By Hannah Kasper Levinson Special To The Observer

David Levinthal is a photographer based in New York whose exhibit, American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs, opens Oct. 15 at the Dayton Art Institute. The exhibit is on tour from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Levinthal works in series, inspired by historic events and American cultural icons. His signature style first emerged in graduate school at Yale in the 1970s. He captures familiar miniature toys — dolls and toy soldiers — set up in a diorama, with the camera very close to the subject. This creates a narrow depth of field — like looking through a peephole — giving the effect of peering into a realistic environment.

To unravel David Levinthal's work is to question our universal fascination with miniatures. The miniature takes us back to the ancient Egyptians, who buried their dead with clay representations of everything they may have needed in the afterlife: tools, furniture, and servants all small enough to hold in one’s hand. The earliest evidence of the dollhouse, itself a miniature, was one made for a Bavarian duke in 1558.

The connection between miniature and imagination is based largely in relationship to childhood. To see detail in small things requires such attention that to experience it detaches you from the surrounding world. The make-believe world No one does fall better. of a child is much the same. Miniatures and childhood also bring associations of fairy tales. Congregation Anshe Emeth In Hans Christian Andersen's 320 Caldwell St. • Piqua Thumbelina, the protagonist is so miniscule that she experiences Reform Congregation • Organized 1858 • All Are Welcome! her own world within the real HIGH HOLIDAY SERVICES one. Like a fairy tale, the play- Rabbi Samantha Schauvaney • In Person & Via Zoom*

fulness in Levinthal’s photos masks more complex themes rooted in adult subject matter. Here, David Levinthal talks about his influences and the connections to Judaism in his work.

How did photography become your medium?

When I went to college in 1966, my intention was to be a poli-sci major and go to law school. That lasted pretty much one class. There was something at Stanford called The Free University. Anyone could teach a course on anything. Dwight, a friend who taught there, was the epitome of cool. He had really long hair and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders every time I saw him on campus there were beautiful women with him and I thought, "I want to be like that." Dwight was teaching a photography class and taught Iwo Jima from the series History by David Levinthalme how to develop film and make a print. I just became so fascinated by it. Stanford at the David Levinthal time did not offer photography, which I feel was a very positive thing for me because it meant that if I wanted to do it, I had to be selfmotivated.

What do you hope the viewer takes away from your work?

So much of my imagery draws upon everyone’s own vi- Continued on Page 28

sual memories, film, television, paintings. When you look at my photographs, there’s often not a lot of detail, but the images in the photograph play off of one’s own visual memory bank. It’s like you’re filling in a lot of the space and creating a story about what had happened and what is about to happen.

The collection of the Dayton Art Institute includes epic paintings depicting battle scenes, landscapes, historical figures. They make me think of your subject matter. What inspires you?

As a 13-year-old, my parents took my sister and I to Europe and I remember going to the Louvre every day and I loved the history paintings: those magnificent battles, the king on horseback in the foreground. Painting to this day is still a big influence. When I was doing the cowboys series, I referenced a lot of Remington and Russell, painters who depicted the American West. If you were making toys in the ‘30s and ‘40s, your reference was probably those painters. Figures on horseback were sculpted from a painting and made into a toy, which I then photographed.

So much of my inspiration comes from film. I loved looking at the John Wayne movie The Searchers to get a sense of the background colors and tried to replicate it in my photograph.

American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs on view Oct. 15-Jan. 15. at the Dayton Art Institute, 456 Belmonte Park N., Dayton. For more information, go to daytonartinstitute.org or call 937-223-4278. Corner of Far Hills & Dorothy Lane 2977 FAR HILLS AVE

DAYTON OH 45419 937-224-7673

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