Photography + Books: Out of the Retina, Into the Brain

This is the first in a series of collection-based exhibitions exploring connections between photography and other creative fields.

In thirty years of collecting, Aaron and Barbara Levine have filled their Washington, DC, home with postwar and contemporary art. Objects small and large line the walls or perch on tables, shelves, and other areas. Many of these works belong to conceptual art and its legacy, in which thinking about the meanings of art is as important as the visual—retinal—sensations gained by looking.

Plentiful as they are, works of art in the Levine home are far outnumbered by books—some seven thousand at present. While many of these volumes are about artists and art, others are by artists and were made as works of art in their own right. Nearly all of the books foreground language and photography, which was used to make the illustrations; these are two focal points for the art collection as well. The Levines are particularly drawn to books conceived as a kind of portable sculpture, and they approach books and works of art in a similar manner, as objects to study and learn from. The Levine home and its contents can be understood as one great art library. 

Photography, language, and sculpture accordingly fill the four rooms of this exhibition, the first public showing of the Levines’ collection. The works span a century of art, from Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol and on to the present day.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website