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David Levinthal: Recent Acquisitions

February 12 – October 8, 2017

Exhibition

Image Gallery

David Levinthal Untitled, from the series Toy Soldiers, 1972 Kodalith 10 x 8 inches NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Donald Rosenfeld Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, 2016.38
David Levinthal Untitled, from the series Toy Soldiers, 1972 Kodalith 10 x 8 inches NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Donald Rosenfeld Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, 2016.39
David Levinthal Untitled, from the series Cowboy Kodalith, 1973 Kodalith 8 x 10 inches NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Donald Rosenfeld Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, 2016.28
David Levinthal Untitled, from the series Cowboy Kodalith, 1973 Kodalith 8 x 10 inches NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Donald Rosenfeld Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, 2016.29
David Levinthal Untitled, from the series Modern Romance, 1982 Gelatin silver print 10 x 8 inches NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Donald Rosenfeld Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, 2016.33
Installation view of David Levinthal: Recent Acquisitions at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. Photo by Steven Brooke.
Installation view of David Levinthal: Recent Acquisitions at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. Photo by Steven Brooke.
Installation view of David Levinthal: Recent Acquisitions at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. Photo by Steven Brooke.

David Levinthal: Recent Acquisitions

NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present an exhibition of 25 pivotal photographs by artist David Levinthal (b. 1949), whose work is a commentary on American popular culture, icons and ideologies. The photographs were part of a recent gift to NSU Art Museum by New York collector and film producer Donald Rosenfeld, and is included in the Modern Mythologies exhibition series that explores the power of myths in contemporary times. David Levinthal: Recent Acquisitions will be on view from February 12 through October 8, 2017.

As a graduate student at Yale in 1972, Levinthal began constructing miniature environments with toy figures, which he then photographed using dramatic lighting and angles to create highly charged dramatic scenes. Levinthal’s work became an important influence on Pictures Generation artists such as Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons and Richard Prince, who came onto the art scene in the late 1970s and whose work incorporated popular imagery and mass media. “These seminal works by David Levinthal augment the museum’s contemporary art collection with its focus on Pictures Generation artists to the present,” states Bonnie Clearwater.

The exhibition will include Levinthal’s series of photographs of toy cowboys and soldiers created at Yale, on view for the first time since his thesis exhibition, along with photographs from his well-known Modern Romance series in which he used isolated tiny doll figurines to create melodramatic mises-en-scene reminiscent of Edward Hopper paintings and film noir.

Initially interested in toys merely as objects, Levinthal became aware of the emotions that his constructions evoked in viewers. As Levinthal stated, he discovered that “the narrow focus that came from photographing objects less than an inch tall gave the toys more life and a sense of realism that was not inherent in them. Setting up the toy figures is just the beginning. The set itself is just the background. It is a scene. And it is within and from that scene that the images themselves are found.”

His work explores the ambiguities between illusion and fact as well as the role photography has traditionally played as an objective, documentary medium.

David Leventhal: Recent Acquisitions is part of NSU Art Museum’s Modern Mythologies exhibition series. It runs concurrently with two other exhibitions in the series, Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road, and Jose Bedia Fieldwork: Selections from the de la Cruz Collection and the Artist. It will be followed by the exhibition Human Animals: The Art of Cobra. These exhibitions represent the persistence of myths, whether ancient or drawn from Hollywood and the Golden Age of television, to provide narratives that help explain the mysteries of life and existence.

About David Levinthal
David Leventhal was born in San Francisco, CA and lives and works in New York. He received his undergraduate degree in studio art from Stanford University and MFA in Photography from Yale University, along with an MA in Management Science from MIT. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work is included in numerous museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Museum of Modern, NY; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Brooklyn Museum; The Art Institute of Chicago; and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

In conjunction with his NSU Art Museum exhibition, Levinthal will be conducting workshops with several hundred students from Broward County Public Schools as part of the Museum’s Museum on the Move education outreach program.

Exhibitions and programs at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale are made possible in part by a challenge grant from the David and Francie Horvitz Family Foundation. Funding is also provided by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Nova Southeastern University, Hudson Family Foundation, Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council and Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. NSU Art Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

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Exhibitions

Currently on View

Addison Wolff, Legs Up in the Air, 2024, Textural synthetic polymer on bisque ceramic, 19.5 x 26 x 14 in (49.5 x 66 x 35.5 cm), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Purchased with funds provided by Curator Circle 2025.3.

Addison Wolff: At the Baths

August 14, 2025
September 21, 2025 - March 22, 2026
https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/UpcomingSizing-01-2-scaled.jpg 1817 2560 David Guidi https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSU-Logo-2021.png David Guidi2025-08-14 15:25:352025-09-20 17:11:39Addison Wolff: At the Baths
Asger Jorn, Individuum Ineffable (Ineffable Personality), 1966, Acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 21.7 x 18.5 in (55.2 x 46.9 cm), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; Cobra Collection; gift of Golda and Meyer Marks M-98.30. © 2025 Donation Jorn, Silkeborg / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VISDA; Photograph by Angelika Rinnhofer.

Asger Jorn: Luck and Chance

August 14, 2025
September 21, 2025 - August 16, 2026
https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/UpcomingSizing-01-scaled.jpg 1817 2560 David Guidi https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSU-Logo-2021.png David Guidi2025-08-14 15:00:392025-09-20 17:11:55Asger Jorn: Luck and Chance
Leonora Carrington, Artes 110 (Arts 110), 8 Febrie, 1944, Oil on canvas, 16 x 24 in (40.6 x 60.9 cm), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; promised gift of Pearl and Stanley Goodman, PG2012.1.12. © 2025 Estate of Leonora Carrington / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Shared Dreams: Celebrating the recent gift of the Stanley and Pearl Goodman Latin American Art Collection

August 14, 2025
Opens September 21, 2025
https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/artes110-scaled.jpg 1678 2560 David Guidi https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSU-Logo-2021.png David Guidi2025-08-14 10:02:072025-09-20 17:12:09Shared Dreams: Celebrating the recent gift of the Stanley and Pearl Goodman Latin American Art Collection
Cardboard Sphinx

The Riddle of the Sphinx and Other Mysteries

May 14, 2025
Opens May 30, 2025
https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1_1040663-scaled.jpg 1920 2560 David Guidi https://nsuartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSU-Logo-2021.png David Guidi2025-05-14 17:00:562025-09-22 14:53:18The Riddle of the Sphinx and Other Mysteries

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Link to: Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road Link to: Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road700 Nimes Road Portfolio Link to: José Bedia Fieldwork : Selections from the de la Cruz Collection and the Artist Link to: José Bedia Fieldwork : Selections from the de la Cruz Collection and the Artist José Bedia Ogun Series: 05 Nsunsu Mayimbe (Vulture), 1992 Ink conte on Amate paper Photography courtesy of de la Cruz Collection Miami, FLJosé Bedia Fieldwork : Selections from the de la Cruz Collection and the A...
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