Interview

Written By Editorial Team

Jon Levi

Jon Levi graduated from the SMFA (School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and Tufts University, Spring of 1993 BFA, 5th Year Certificate, Post Graduate Scholar and Awarded a 10k Traveling Scholarship. Also attended RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Summer Programs, Summer's of 1985 and 1986. He attended several semesters at SVA in 2000. Year 1987 to 1988, he attended (NTID) National Technical Institute of the Deaf via Rochester Institute of Technology. Jon never stopped being a photographer and an artist, having small shows through his travels working various crafts and jobs. From Hollywood, CA, New Jersey, New York to Israel and back. Forty years of art and photography since 1985.

 

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“I was born in New Jersey in the spring of ‘68. I picked up a Polaroid in ‘74. I did painting and darkroom work in high school. I shot my first nude when I was 15 and drawing, painting, photographing, sculpting nudes. I started as an artist in earnest when I wore young man’s clothes in my late teens at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photography has been my constant in the last 40 years. I didn’t really see photography as a viable direction into itself until well into the SMFA, back then I used photography as a tool to capture images that I would later draw, paint and sculpt. I couldn’t afford the models so I’d shoot them instead. Print the images, paint from the images, even include the actual prints into the paintings and paint over them.”

What inspires you?

“Good question. In the 70’s, 80’s Playboy magazines in my house as a kid was all the rage, Mad Magazine too. Now that I think about it; nudes combined with the Mad Magazine ethos, shows up in my photography. Totems of my childhood drives me in my present day. It shows up powerfully in my dreams and memories. Sort of a self diary. I'll never forget the day I picked up a book called NUDE:THEORY by Jain Kelly, in 1979, I think, at a bookstore in East Hampton, NY. I still have it. It's very dog eared now. Talk about an awakening. It opened a door to my consciousness. I thought wow, I could do this. Connected me in visceral way. 1980 I saw Animal House and a topless scene, whoa. Don't forget Porky's.

I'm not sure today's generation will understand this because these are not their totems. I have so many stories. Another one predates my life as an artist: When I was a child in the late ‘70’s I walked into a house for dinner, see by the stairs a huge mural photograph of a woman walking nude on the very same steps. Memories are like photographs, this image burned into my brain. In comes this dapper gentleman to join us to dinner with friends. The hostess for lack of coasters passed out polaroids to place our drinks on (me being too young to drink). I stared wide eyed as the polaroids were of fantastic women in all kinds of undress. It wasn’t till years later I realized the dapper gentleman was Helmut Newton. I could name all the influences of artists and photographers and painters and sculptors and actors and movies and books and dancers and cooks and music that light the soul till you are blue in the face. But that's not the point. There's a spark of inspiration that started us, that opened our minds to the world. I give credit to my grandpa Eddie (who stuck one or two Playboy magazines in a stack of Popular Mechanics or whatnot) for me when I was a kid. Grandpa Eddie drives me to this very day and definitely Helmut Newton. Jackson Pollock also plays a small role in this, albeit many years after his death. Sally Mann. Jock Sturges before he fell from grace. Egon Shiele, Kiki of Montparnasse, all the players of 1920's Paris between the wars. I discovered most of them before the age of 18. I was impressionable, ate this up. Are you blue in the face yet? I invite anyone to talk art history with me.”

What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?

“Study the old masters. They were here before us and they will be here after us. We have, all of us, a date of birth, a dash and a date of death. Sounds morbid, I know. Read that sentence again. Most people I think would just glance at it with nary a thought. The dates aren't important. It's the dash. Make the most of that dash. The dash is life. If you are reading this, we are the dash now. Eric Fischl's very successful painting images that convey our common experiences of life, common tropes like beaches, plastic swimming pools, nudes etc, that convey relatability, color, composition, memories. What about Diego Velazquez's ‘Triumph of Bacchus,’ painting of the smiling man locking eyes with you across the centuries and millennia? There are images that stop time. And this is one of them. We have influences that transcends the question of themes, messages that we want to convey. These influences drive us. I would be amiss not mentioning who drives me. I think quite a bit of artists miss out not stating who influenced them when answering the question above. Sir Isaac Newton said it on the 5th of February 1675, ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.’ Most of these themes and messages above are mine and will eventually belong to others.”

How would you describe your work?

“Bullet time. Stopping time. I think this credo by Georges Bataille says it best, ‘The sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space.’ Or more succinctly, ‘The tiger is to space is as the sex act is to time.’ Time stands still. Google him, there's a better explanation online than I could give here. The old masters as crusty and dusty as they were when I was kid seeing cheap reproductions in old people's houses didn't do the trick or even the color plates in art history books. You have to read the stories behind them to make them come alive. And oh did they come alive in museums, clean and gleaming in color in front of you. The compositions, themes, mythology of the Old Masters, the manicness of Jackson Pollock, even Diebenkorn, Americana of my time shows up in my works. Who knows, you might relate to it differently.”

“Study the old masters. They were here before us and they will be here after us.”

What is your creative process like?

“Be in the moment. Connect to your thoughts and memories and some tangents, colors and objects will pick up along the way to your brain. Deconstruct the thoughts and ask why? Don't let your head smoke. This is not about self analysis. It's about grabbing what sparks your heart-mind connection. And go with it. I have some tools to do it. The camera is one of them. The camera I think is the greatest gift to mankind besides sushi, the greatest passport into other worlds I am not part of. I'm deaf. It's hard for me to find my way into social situations that I would not expect to find myself in. And wow what a ride. Here's one: I was in Arizona a few years ago to shoot a nude model, Becca at a fantastic pool location only to discover a Fellini-esque scene and a Back to the Future DeLorean (yes the original one) in the garage. The model’s ex showed up drunk. I realized that I better make friends with him, turn him into the grip and prop man to keep him busy. Becca’s appeasing him not to make a scene. In comes the Orkin man, straight out of central casting to fumigate the house. Over the fence, next door is a kid bouncing furiously on the trampoline to stare at my naked model. Bounce, I see his head, disappears, bounce I see his head again. I thought, ‘fuck this can’t get any better.’ The tension was like sliced butter. And it's all on camera.”

What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?

“I'm not a politician, some artists chose to be politicians, not me. I just don't have the time and the headspace for it. However I hold steadfast in what I believe in and that is being me, the, ‘I Yam what I Yam,’ Popeye credo. People can either accept my works or don't. It's their prerogative. Bottom line is I believe in myself and my works' power to effect how I feel and others. Egon Shiele did the same and he was crucified for it. That and fighting intolerance.”

Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?

“I have had had a lot of small exhibitions over the years since 1987. My favorite memory is the exhibition of my sculpture cum painting cum photography cum video, cum music at the Boston MFA under the auspices of School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Nobody could get it in their heads (only a very few) because I used so many mediums as one piece in one exhibit. A phantasmogoric moving biographical canvas of themes, memories, art. AND I was especially proud I exhibited next to a Jackson Pollock. (Number 10, 1949).”

 
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