A conversation about his career and unique approach to image making. Good evening. Welcome to a conversation between photographer David Leventhal and our senior curator of contemporary interpretation, joanna marsh. It is always a treat to hear from an artist and i can tell you that david is a great storyteller. We are in for a delightful evening. I also wanted to pause and not only recognize david but his family who has come from far away, from utah and california, nephews, sisters, please join be me in welcoming david and his family. [applause] after this program, i invite all of you to join us for the reception for the celebratory opening of american myth in David Leventhal photographs. For those of you who do not know me, i have the pleasure as serving as the director here at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and also our branch museum, the renwick gallery. Very often i hear from people, once i introduced myself as the director, whats on view . Im always happy to share that news and the exciting programs and exhibitions we have going on, but it is truly the curious questioner who says why. Why this exhibition . Why now . Im going to let you in on a secret. Why do we have this special exhibition at this moment in time . It all began with a gift. Actually, two or three gifts now that i count it. In 2017 and 2018, we received remarkably generous gifts of large bodies of David Leventhals work. One comes from donald rosenfeld, whos here with us tonight, so please join me in thanking him for his generosity. [applause] the other donor has chosen to remain anonymous, but could be sitting next to you. [laughter] these generous gifts, totaling some 500 works, really put us in a very special position at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as one of the preeminent depositories of his work. The next gift i wanted to share with you is davids gift. Once he realized that we would have such a meaningful body of work here at the nations capital, he thought about his own collection, in this case not the toys, although i would love to have the toys, but rather his journals, his papers, his notes, and that goes to our sister institution, the american archives. The archives of american art. Thats worth clapping for, too. [laughter] as you may know, the archives is the worlds preeminent and most widely used Research Center , with the focus on collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in america. Those of you who really know this building well, know there is a separate gallery dedicated to sharing some of their treasures. Its always wonderful when we can have deep holding of an artist work and important archival materials. For anyone who in the future wants to understand and fully delve into the creative world that David Leventhal has created, you have to come here to the smithsonian american art , museum, and also using the resources of the archives of american art. Please know we are honored to be entrusted with these treasures. And as the keepers of the largest and most Inclusive Collection of american art in the world, totaling some 44,000 works of art and counting, we have a sacred duty also to collect artists, seminole american artists, photographers, painters, this gives us a unique insight into the work of artists who have played such an Important Role in the life of our cultural community, inspiring other artists. David, as you will hear, was bynt toward mentored walker evans as a very young man. And i know he is an inspiration to many others. Here at the museum, we explore ways that images, both perpetuate and question stereotypes in american life. This exhibition, in particular, invites you to look closely at what seem at first to be very familiar images, but then i hope you will look longer and find the intriguing, and maybe even the questionable parts of the exhibition. And the individual works, which are grouped in various themes. One of my duties and pleasures is to thank the supporters of this exhibition. Edgarre the marjorie and fund the william , and christine raglan family endowment, and the bernie statement endowment fund. I would happy for you to hear me say your name from the podium. You simply need to be a supporter for one of our projects. Please join me in thanking joanna marsh and her colleague Melissa Henderson in gathering work presented at 40 or career 40 year career of a remarkable artist. [applause] what may seem usual to you is unusual, in the sense that most photographers capture the outside world. They document what we see and experience. It is the unusual artist, a group of artists that david is leading among, who focus on the interior world that they have composed. Magically created landscapes, environments, historical moments, influenced by pop culture, by mass media, and by memories. And they all offer us an insight into the world that we live in, and what we call the american identity. Ever shifting, everincreasing, as we tell ourselves and future generations those founding stories, sometimes founding myths, of what it means to be truly american. I also remind you that photography helps people see the world. What i appreciate about David Leventhal is that he helps us see america in a powerful way. Without further ado, i think you want to hear from the artist and joanna marsh, are very talented curator. Im going to invite joanna marsh now to the podium. Thank you for being here tonight. [applause] thank you, stephanie. And thank you everyone for being here this evening. I have a few housekeeping items to run through before introducing tonights program and bringing david to the stage. I know thats why everyone is really here. First, there will be a 15 minute period, and answer following the conversation. We have invited guests, all of you, to write questions on cards at the conclusion of our conversation. You will pass the cards toward the aisle and my colleagues will collect them and hand them to me on the stage. We will also have a reception in our courtyard following the program tonight, and we invite all of you to be there with us. Next, i would like to echo the thanks to our donors and acknowledge a few other people who worked closely with me on this project. From David Levinthals studio, those who attended the countless details and questions from me and my colleagues. David rosenfeld, one of our donors. Exhibit designer sarah gray, and Graphic Designer daniel phillips, lighting designer Scott Rosenfeld who made the gallery shine. Paper conservator kate mainer. Our frame specialist tom area and, and barton kotler, who prepared all of the work for review. My interpretation team, stephanie mentioned Melissa Hendrickson and showalter and kelly skeen, who are thought partners on this project from its inception, and who helped craft the dynamic interpretive materials that are on view in the galleries. And of course, David Levinthal, who has been the most gracious artistic partner on this project that a curator could ever wish for. Thank you, david. So, with that, it seems fitting that we are gathered tonight on the heels of the 75th anniversary of dday to talk about an exhibition that focuses on how Historic Events and iconic cultural subjects are collectively remembered and mythologized. It is doubly fitting, because David Levinthals first major photographic series focused on events of world war ii. Specifically, hitlers invasion of the soviet union. The project titled hitler moves east was a collaboration with a friend and former classmate, gary trudeau. They employed toy soldiers and constructed sets to stage the track by hitlers troops into the former soviet union between 1941 and 1943. The sepia toned images, i might you see here but you dont see them. I might need some help. Really . Ok. Im going to keep talking. Sepia toned images were published in the book you see here, in 1977, and set the stage for the now decades long preoccupation with history, memory, and myth. The photographs provoked questions that still hover over David Levinthals work. What am i looking at . , what am i looking at, really . [laughter] ok, hi. Thanks. Are these actually human beings . Hours were spent studying archival battle footage. It was equally inspired by their experience of the war. How the war was passed down to them through film, novels, plays, poems, and even toys. His subsequent bodies of work are equally informed by various visual culture, from film noir if i can do this right, got it to televised westerns, photojournalism, and 19thcentury painting. At the same time, his photographs explore and critique these various forms of visual culture. Influencedculture the way we experience, understand, and collectively remember people, objects, and events. Innovative practice of using toys to surface deeply rooted societal ideas and assumptions invites us to look more closely at what we think we know about these subjects, and what they say about who we are. It is now my pleasure to invite David Leventhal to the stage. [applause] ok, hi. David hi. Before we begin, i want to thank you and everyone at the museum who have worked incredibly hard. Joanne and i started working on this back in 2013. And it has been a long, but wonderful process. I love your title about myth and memory. However, now that i have just turned 70, i thought we could add a question mark after memory. [laughter] but i am delighted to be here, and honored and thrilled to have this exhibition at the smithsonian. Thank you, david. David jokes about his memory, but in fact he is not just a terrific visual storyteller, but also a great storyteller verbally. And i hope you will share some tonight. First of all, what is appealing about photographing toys . Why toys . David well, i think i gave you a glib answer earlier by saying that they always show up for work and they dont talk back. [laughter] was particularly true of the barbie series. You never had to worry about them gallivanting around studio 54 and coming in not being able to stand up. Part of it is my own personal history. Playing with toy soldiers. There areerful wonderful photographs you included in the exhibition in the process area that my sister found when we were going through my grandmothers things many years ago. It took me lying on the floor playing with these beautiful germanmade cowboy and indian figures. I think that was the beginning of a Long Association i have with toys. I think one of the things you do when youre playing with toys is you imagine a world they are in, that has always stayed with me. To become anded artist. 1966ered stanford in wanting to become a constitutional lawyer. I will tell a short story about how parents are trying to do the best for you, and things actually work out for the best, but totally not what they were planning. Week whenreq everyone else was running around getting drunk and doing other things, i was sitting down with the head of the poly side partment, who was poly the department, who was a friend of my parents. Hisaid h i should take class in the spring because i was so brilliant. It ended up being a class that was mostly for sophomores and juniors and held in a big auditorium, bigger than this. What really convinced me was polysci was not for me eight or nine books we were to read about local elections in small hamlets throughout new england. Those who may have gone to school around that time may have remembered. I believe i read two pamphlets into books. The class was the most pedantic exercise i ever encountered in my four years in stanford. Exam iber on the final poured all of my knowledge from those two books into pamphlets and theand got a b comment, wish you could have elaborated more on this. Me too. That was the end of my polysci career. I eventually found myself to making films. Very briefly as a classics major, which was odd for some of who did not take latin in high school, but thats a whole other story. I discovered photography at something called the Free University. You have to remember, this is the mid 60s, the bay area. The Free University was a totally unstructured environment where anyone could teach a course about anything. The nobel winning physicist William Shockley taught about the genetic inferiority of africanamericans. There was also a course, which probably would have changed my life if i had any idea what it , tantric yoga and lsd. Would haverold i run right to that class if i had any idea what was involved. [laughter] david but i ended up taking a photography class because the person teaching it, a graduate someonein biology, was that my sister knew even though she was younger than i am. And i thought dwight was the coolest guy in the world. Every time i saw dwight there were always two beautiful women with him. This is, despite the fact that he was married to the sister of one of my best friends from high school. But that is a whole it was the 60s. So i showed up to the first and only class, which happened at somebodys home. Dwight showed me how to develop film and make a print. And i continued hanging out and working with him. The class never met after that, they were mostly grad students in the sciences. And that is where i developed my passion for photography. Barry fortuitously very fortuitously, there was no photography taught at stanford. And i say fortuitously, because it made me seek out my own education. One of the people, Ruth Bernhardt, one of the two great figures in photography. She was part of the 1964 group westonsell adams, edward group. She ran out of her home in San Francisco on green street the Ruth Bernhardt school of photography. I went there and took classes. I think the fact that everything was done as an extracurricular activity meant that i had to really want to do it. I think that was a great benefit to me. Now, of course, stanford has an mfa program. I think it really tested my interest and my desire. Joanna im curious. Since youre talking about teachers, and stephanie and her opening remarks mentioned walker evans. After graduating from stanford you went on to Yale University school of art where you studied under walker evans. You began to develop a style that could not have been farther from the documentary style of evans work. I was curious what that transition was like. How he continued to mentor you, despite you going in a very different direction . David walker was a very interesting man. Along with one of his proteges, William Chris and barry enberry, who is very wellknown known in the , walker loved talking about french literature. He did not have much interest in talking about photography. He had gone to paris as a young man and wanted to be a writer. It was only subsequently that he delved into photography. So, i had the seminar with walker, and knew him. I got to know him more because one of my classmates, jerry thompson, ended up printing for walker, and taking care of him in the last few years of his life. And jerry was magnificent and a fastidious printer. He told this great story. He was out at walkers home making some prints. Walker came in, saw this print in the garbage, and starts to pull it out and get a pen and sign it. And he says this will be fine for that woman in fairfield. Jerry took it out of his hands and said im going to make a good print. I think it was i mean, i went because ofcifically walker evans. I looked at his photographs. Being able to study with somebody of that significance i felt was something i really wanted to do. Because when i was applying for teaching jobs back ofthe day when letters recommendation were confidential, i had met these people from the university of kansas and was applying for a job there. When i got my portfolio returned without an offer of a teaching job, inside they had mistakenly placed my four letters of recommendation. [laughter] from the othere faculty members and the head of the department, were nice, your typical letter. Walker had written a short, two paragraph letter, in which he said, david is an extraordinarily talented and gifted photographer, and would be a wonderful addition to your faculty. Apparently they did not think so. Stephanie mentioned the archives of american art. That letter is now there. And i was so touched by it, because walker would never say anything like that to me personally. But, it was wonderful to know that he saw, in this very raw work i mean, i literally started with the toy soldier, photographing on my bedroom floor in california over winter break. I remember in january when we came back to school we had portfolio reviews. The other, there were four photographers in my year. Three, four are in the year following. Everybody came in with, particularly like jerry, beautiful prints, printed using the same technology as edward westen had used. They were all shooting with 8x10 or 4x5. And they would bring into this portfolio of elegant prints. We went in one at a time. And i came in with probably 250 prints in boxes, and put stacks by everybody. I said ive just started working on this and im really excited about it. There was dead silence. Fortunately, linda connor from the Art Institute of San Francisco was there as a visiting artist. Said these up and are amazing. I use this when im talking to students. When you study physics in high school with a but a hockey puck on dry ice. Give it a little push and it keeps going and going. Linda was that little push. We have managed to stay friends. We even appeared together. And i have always made a point to tell her just how much i appreciated that. Because that was the energy that i needed just to keep going for the rest of the year. And, to their credit, it was not as though the other faculty members were negative. They were just, sort of, i remember John Sarkowsky came for a visit to yale. People looked at them, and said, i have no idea what this is . [laughter] david they were not discouraging me. That having that little encouragement was all that i needed. Then, after graduation, jerrys , weisher, andrews mcneil had exchanged some work. And garys thesis w