Existing comment:
Modern Romance
Levinthal's Modern Romance series considers the media's influence on ideas of intimacy and privacy. Inspired by Edward Hopper's moody paintings of modern American life and the voyeuristic atmosphere of 1940s film noir, the photographs feature inch-high figures of men and women arranged in suggestive scenarios within shadowy sets. They hint at covert encounters and suspicious storylines that never fully divulge their secrets. Levinthal began the series using black-and-white film but quickly moved to a Polaroid SX-70 instant camera. For many of the SX-70 photographs, Levinthal pointed a video camera at his sets and then photographed the image that appeared on his television screen. The result -- a grainy image reminiscent of closed-circuit surveillance footage -- heightens the sense of illicit viewing and highlights the increasingly murky boundaries between public and private life. |