In my recent post on American artists who work small scale, I forgot to mention photographer David Levinthal. He works with small-scale figures (often toys), but the final artifact is usually a 20 x 24 inch Polaroid. Polaroid film has a particularly malleable and atmospheric quality that’s magnified when using a macro lens in combination with a shallow depth of field. The effect is cinematic.
Levinthal takes as his subject the myths that preoccupy America and the West. His series titles say it all: Modern Romance, American Beauties, The Wild West, Barbie, Baseball. His minstrel series (Blackface), his re-imagining of the Holocaust (Mein Kampf) and his WWII “documentary” war images (Hitler Moves East, co-created with Garry Trudeau) have been controversial, though critically acclaimed. (more…)
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