Le livre offre plus de deux cents images organisées en quinze thèmes issus d’une maquette de Levinstein lui-même pour un portfolio jamais réalisé. L’ouvrage comporte en outre trois textes : l’un, du commissaire de l’exposition, donne un aperçu très général de l’œuvre ; le second, d’une amie de Levinstein, galeriste et animatrice de la scène photographique new-yorkaise, Helen Gee, apporte d’intéressants éléments de biographie ; l’autre enfin, remarquable à tous égards, du critique A. D. Coleman, explore le travail du photographe à partir d’une double base historique et esthétique. Leon Levinstein, né en 1913 et mort en 1988, était un véritable amateur qui photographia presque exclusivement sa ville d’adoption, New York, et plus précisement ses rues. Il ne publia que quelques rares images, exposa très peu, mais laissa un ensemble conséquent d’images ; 1ère édition tirée à 2500 exemplaires, sous la direction de Sam Stourdzé, avec des textes de Sam Stourdzé, Helen Gee et A.D. Coleman, photos en n.b.
History is full of artists whose work never caught on during their lifetime only to leave them embittered and resentful that the world didn’t see their greatness. There are many others whose work was recognized by a few but the artist was his or her own worst enemy in regard to making the recognition public. Some even had people around them willing to help promote their work yet they acted too difficult to help. Leon Levinstein was a photographer who experienced all of the conflicts above. As remembered by Helen Gee, the owner of the Limelight Gallery, “Success will come to Levinstein only when he’s no longer around to stand in its way.”
It is not the world at large Levinstein was looking at with his camera but its inhabitants. In fact, if one scours Levinstein’s œuvre, most all of the images describe a face or limbs but somehow avoid describing much at all about the world that surrounds them. As viewers, we have almost no notion of how these characters fit into the world at the moment of the shutter’s release. His is a tunnel vision reliant on bare elements boxed by the edges of his tightly cropped frames.
In some of the photographs he employs perspectives that would seem to have their roots in constructivism with low angles and looming diagonals. But unlike the more common use of these vantage points to create heroic and idealized versions of mankind, Levinstein’s mankind is one that struggles to exist and suffers with the daily toil.
In reading about Levinstein’s life he comes across as photography’s lonely soul. He was a man who avoided intimacy with others throughout most of his life and never had a serious relationship other than with photography. Perhaps this accounts for why his photos concentrate so heavily on the human face and gesture; it was his only way of connecting. I am always a bit weary of using photographs as a barometer of an artist’s psyche but there is a remarkable correlation.