Rangefinder Magazine
October 2005

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Art Levit by Judith Bell
Compressed Energy

Immediate and dense, the photographs of Art Levit inhabit the surface with a compressed energy, defying association with the three-dimensional world they document. Myriad aluminum cans, sheets of flattened metal, compacted plastic bottles, reflections of standing water, exposed walls destined for demolition—these are the ordinary and overlooked subjects that engage Levit. Through the lens of his camera, however, his subject soon falls away. From the decay emerges a studied order, a rhythmic repetition, an obsessive layering that suggests a kind of visual perfection discovered in detritus.

“People assume the ‘Grids and Reflections’ series is an ecological, societal statement. Maybe it is,” says Levit of the body of work recently on view at Berkeley’s Photolab Gallery. “I’m just not in touch with that. I print exactly what I found in my viewfinder, sometimes discovering later there was more to see than I realized when I captured the image. The recycling gets transformed into an indeterminate image, and that’s where the excitement is for me.” To further emphasize the disconnect between subject and image, Levit refers to the images in the series as untitled. “I find that when the viewer knows the reference for the image, it detracts from its visual impact.”

“I print exactly what I found in my viewfinder, sometimes discovering later there was more to see than I realized when I captured the image.”

Photography has been a lifelong passion for Levit. Based in Oakland, California, the 57-year-old physician began shooting as a medical student. Five years ago, he experimented with films from MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). “I wanted to take the films into the darkroom, use them as negatives, and make prints on which I would then paint. When I began to enlarge them, I found it wasn’t working. Their resolution, perfect for radiologists who view them as small images, is too poor for enlargement.”

That creative roadblock led Levit to experiment with photographing digitally. He worked first with a 5-megapixel camera before moving on to the 6-megapixel Nikon D70 SLR he now uses. “Digital was a revelation to me. I realized I could avoid the darkroom and indulge my passion for color.” Essential to his explorations is the Epson 2200 printer. Working in an 11x14-inch format, he finds the detail the 2200 provides equal in quality with images printed on the more commercial Epson 9600 and 4000 printers. “The main problem with detail in digital printing is enlarging too much. Keeping the image at a reasonable size, the detail in digital is almost undetectable from optical film.”

Levit prints on Epson Velvet Fine Art paper, a cut rag variegated paper resembling watercolor paper in texture. “With the Epson 2200, there’s an inherent richness in color and the quality of detail. This paper emphasizes the dimensionality of the image and gives a sense of depth. There is a lot of play of space, a layering of images that happens in my work. The light falls on the paper, bounces around, and reflects off because of the irregularity of the surface, giving a richer reflection of light off the inks.”

Levit discovers his images in unlikely places. Many of the images in the “Grids and Reflections” series were shot at several large warehouses and yards in West Oakland owned by California Waste Solutions, Inc., a company contracting with the city of Oakland for curbside recycling. “Untitled, 2/2004, Oakland, CA” emerged from over 40 shots taken in a yard stacked with thousands of skids.

Levit moved through the skids, documenting the variations in depth created by their arrangement. “I like the flatness of this image, how the perspective shifts when you view it from different angles. I’m exploring how the threedimensional world gets transformed into a two-dimensional picture and the optical illusions that accompany that change.”

His most recent work, a study of walls— construction walls, torn down buildings, walls exposed by demolition—lends itself to this study. He shot a number of these images while exploring New Orleans’ warehouse district and the French Quarter. The images hover over the surface, more object than image, retaining the tactile quality of their subjects.

Levit may find his next body of work in the medical realm where his first experimentation with photography began. “When we look at pathology slides and pathologic diagnoses, I’m struck by their beauty. The problem is separating this beauty from the tragic threat it represents, to disconnect from the meaning, the point of reference. I know I’m going to work with this, I’m just not sure how.” Visit: www.artlevit.com to see more of his images.