Biography:

The work of Mikael Levin (b. 1954, New York, US) constitutes a topography of memory. His photography and video projects, often focused on understated, everyday scenes, expand our cultural and historical awareness. Levin has been exhibited widely in the US and in Europe, including solo exhibitions at the Jewish Museum Paris, FR (2010); the Berardo Museum, Lisbon, PT (2009); Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, FR (2003); the International Center of Photography, New York, US (1997); and Fundacion Mendoza, Caracas, VE (1980). His work was included in the Venice Biennale in 2003, and is represented in major private and public collections. He is represented by Gilles Peyroulet & Cie in Paris and L. Parker Stephenson Photographs in New York, US.

Works:

Mikael Levin, Mine Sublime, 2015
four gelatine silver prints
46 × 61 cm (each)
Courtesy of Gilles Peyroulet & Cie

Near Cheorwon, the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone separating it from North Korea is a dense network of military fortifications set among extensive and carefully cultivated rice paddies. Minefields dot the landscape. Demarcated by strands of barbed wire, these plots of land stand out for their dense overgrowth of vegetation, untouched since the devastating war that tore apart this countryside over 70 years ago. In the Romantic landscape, the Sublime was closely identified with vistas of virgin nature that provoke a sense of beauty coupled with terror. There is little terror left in the modern, tamed and sculpted landscape, except perhaps as represented by such minefields. These vestiges of war, necessarily undisturbed, offer the possibility of an ecology restored, of a new form of pure, virgin Nature.