BEING THERE / THE OBSERVANT CAMERA

The landscape photographs by Michael Levin have honed a magical aura. A powerful silence resides in the images and can be felt in every little detail. The photographer achieves this impression primarily through long exposure times, making the still objects such as jetties, bridges, and pickets stand out among the constantly moving environment. The traces of civilization contrast with nature, which seems constantly to shift between aggregate states.

Everything that moves – be it clouds, water, sea birds or even a fisherman in Levin’s work Zebrato from the coast of Amalfi – is reduced to the form of the intersection. During the time of exposure we witness the overlap of the spatial and temporal expansion of bodies and natural phenomena. Levin is able to create an indivisible bond between space and time in his unique compositions. Sea birds (Seven Birds, 2007) become abstract forms on the horizon in his illustration of a very particular temporality and seem to take on lives of their own.

You cannot tire of looking at these fantastic-seeming worlds that give the impression of being suspended in elevated space, in which the laws of nature do not seem to apply. The completely individual radiance of his masterfully composed scenes of striking gray tones has standing in the critical collectors’ circles.

David Gärtner