Author Description

"David Levinthal, a central figure in the history of American postmodern photography, stages uncanny tableaux for the camera, using collectible figures and constructed dioramas. This book, which accompanies the 2013 Corcoran Gallery of Art exhibition David Levinthal: War Games, features the artist's work about war, a subject he has addressed at intervals throughout his career. Levinthal's groundbreaking project Hitler Moves East (1975-77), a series of imagined scenes from World War II's Russian front, became a touchstone for a generation of conceptual artists beginning to produce fictional, mimetic scenes to be photographed. Wild West (1987-2012), perhaps his best-known body of work, stages vignettes from the American Indian Wars, filtered through the nostalgic mythos of Hollywood westerns. World of War (1991-95) revels in the artificiality of 1950s playsets, re-enacting moments from the American Revolutionary War, the Battle of the Alamo in the Texas Revolution, and the American Civil War. Mein Kampf (1993-94) luridly re-enacts Adolph Hitler's theatrical rallies as well as horrifying scenes from the Holocaust. The artist's recent project I.E.D. (2008) echoes contemporary embedded news imagery of U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan." -- Page 2 of cover.