Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq David Levinthal in Conversation with Richard B. Woodward Thursday, April 9, 2009, 7 – 9PM The powerHouse Arena 37 Main Street, Brooklyn For more information: (718) 666-3049 RSVP: rsvp@powerhousearena.com Dealing with war in any context is always a difficult and often problematic venture. To celebrate the release of I.E.D., acclaimed photographer David Levinthal will be in conversation with noted photography critic Richard B. Woodward at the powerHouse Arena on April 9 to discuss his use of toy soldiers and plastic Humvees to explore and understand the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why simulate a war with toys when it is already so familiar to us through daily news broadcasts, and so well documented by photojournalists and soldier-generated cell-phone imagery? In part is it because this book is not just a recreation of the war in Iraq; it is also a commentary about our society and how it is imaging and imagining a war through the use of such direct and immediate signifiers. Never before has there been an instance of such a massive production of toys directly related to a current and unresolved conflict. Levinthal has always viewed toys as both an abstraction and as a tool by which a society and a culture socializes itself. The choice of which and what kind of toys are created, how they are posed, and what they are attempting to represent reflects assumptions about a society's views. I.E.D. is an attempt to look at these questions using the canvas of the war in Iraq, and the new and frightening aspects of this conflict. The acronym I.E.D. (improvised explosive device), unknown to most until just a few years ago, is now a part of our daily vocabulary. By abstracting what is already distant and foreign, Levinthal brings a new perspective to the discourse about this war, going beyond reality to create a new and perhaps more immediate presence. David Levinthal, born in San Francisco in 1949, has been working with toy figures and tableaux as the subject matter for his artwork since 1972. He is the photographer and coauthor, with Garry Trudeau, of Hitler Moves East, originally published in 1977. In January of 1997, the International Center of Photography presented a survey of Levinthal's work from 1975 through 1996. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and was named a 1995 Guggenheim Fellow, among other accolades His work is included in numerous museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, and The Menil Collection. Richard B. Woodward is a critic, journalist, and documentary filmmaker in New York. He has published numerous articles and monographs on photography, including a catalog essay on David Levinthal for his 1997 retrospective at ICP. He has been a visiting photography critic at Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, Massachusetts College of the Arts, and Rhode Island School of Design. A regular contributor to The New York Times and Wall St. Journal, he is currently writing a book on photography for Yale University Press. I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq Photography / Art / Current Events Hardcover, 8.75 x 11.25 inches 96 pages, 70 four-color photographs ISBN: 978-1-57687-488-2     Buy Now      Look Inside »  "Levinthal's technique blurs the distinctions between toys and what they represent, and by extension, between fantasy and reality." —Grady T. Turner "So clever, so thematically complicated are David Levinthal's artistic photographs one could mistake them for intellectual riddles." —Roger Rosenblatt More info on the book » powerHouse Books | powerHouse Arena 37 Main St, Brooklyn, NY 11201 1(718)666-3049 For more information, please contact: Press, Sara Rosen, Publicity Director Sales, Wes Del Val, Sales Director Arena, Customer Information and Event Inquiries © Copyright 2009 powerHouse Books