Dan Levenson

Dan Levenson Biography

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Dan Levenson is a Los Angeles based visual artist working in installation, performance, video, painting, and sculpture. His work explores the relationship of art and freedom through the lens of art education. The paintings and objects he creates represent artifacts rescued from the ruins of an imaginary art school: the State Art Academy, Zurich (its initials in Swiss-German dialect are SKZ). As a painter, he follows the strict formalist pedagogy of his imaginary school: geometrically dividing metrically sized canvases to create abstract compositions. He expands on the story through performance, installation and video. Levenson has taught performative drawing lessons taken from the school’s curriculum at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, American Jewish University, Los Angeles, USC’s Roski School of Art, and the Saas-Fee Summer Institute in Berlin, Germany.

Levenson has exhibited at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; James Fuentes Online, Vielmetter Los Angeles; The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles; Praz-Delavallade, Paris and Los Angeles; de boer Gallery, Los Angeles; Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, Los Angeles, Over the Influence, Los Angeles, PARTICIPANT INC, NYC; LAXART, Los Angeles; White Columns, NYC; and Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA. He is the recipient of a Pollock/Krasner grant and Yaddo and MacDowell Fellowships, among other awards.