Artists

Alon Levin Born in 1975 in Tel Aviv, Israel | Lives and works in Den Haag und Berlin

Portrait

Alon Levin

Alon Levin

Alon Levin’s large-scale constructions made of simple materials available at hardware stores are an examination of the technical and architectural achievements of the Western world and their meaning for today’s society.

A pivotal element is the question as to what extent modernity’s belief in progress and growth continues to be a factor today and whether viable alternatives are conceivable. Russian constructivism is an important point of reference for Levin in this context. He interprets ideas about social and political change into forms that both embody and advance them.

In his latest works, Levin employs shapes like the Arc of Triumph, the winner’s pedestal, and the ferris wheel and translates them into wood structures and plaster castings representing the originals but only vaguely reminiscent of them. Images of the ambiguity of success and failure develop; images of the instability of ideological, economical, and scientific systems. Levin’s practice also is analogous to the way knowledge is pilling up and molded in the “free encyclopedia,” Wikipedia, when he recycles, deconstructs, or repeats individual elements of his work. Data, structures, and documents appear as moveable building blocks in a constantly updated and evolving view of the world.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2011 AMBACH & RICE Los Angeles
KLEMM’S, Berlin
2010 AMBACH & RICE, Seattle
2009 KLEMM’S, Berlin

Group exhibitions (selection)

2012 Track, S.M.A.K., Ghent
2011 Material World, Groninger Museum, Groningen
2010 Zwischenraum, Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg
History of art, the, David Roberts Art Foundation, London
Remodeling Systems, CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson
2009 Weak Signals, Wild Cards, De Appel, Amsterdam
2008 Word Event, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
Shifting Identities - (Swiss) Art Now, Kunsthaus ZĂĽrich, ZĂĽrich

Bibliography

Alon Levin u.a (Dexter Sinister) Modernity in Very General Terms, Berlin 2011
Suzanne Kappeler, „Utopien im Raum“ in: NZZ, 5. Mai 2011
Emily King, „Dinner at the Hilfigers“ in: Fantastic Man, Spring 2011
Mihnea Mircan, (Sternberg Press) Visible, Berlin 2010
Kara Kemp-Welch, „History of Art, the“ in: Art Monthly, Juni 2010
Alon Levin u.a (Dexter Sinister), Things Contemporary, Berlin 2009
Benjamin Genocchio, „Dutch Modern Art…“, in: New York Times, 27. September 2009