DAVID LEVINE

David Levine’s Private Moment takes iconic Central Park movie scenes and infiltrates them back into their original locations, using live actors to quietly transform the Park into a backdrop where any given moment could be read as a film.

 

Taking his title from a classic acting exercise, David Levine, a conceptual artist with a practice strongly rooted in performance and theatre, works with live actors to reinsert iconic movie scenes from Central Park into their original locations. Viewers search for these “private moments” throughout the park, attempting to distinguish looped scenes from everyday human interaction, trying to listen in without eavesdropping; trying to observe without getting too close. Or these subtle, unamplified interventions into the everyday may catch the public by surprise as they recognize favorite characters from favorite films, reliving, again and again, fictional private moments in front of a (sometimes unwitting) audience.

VARIOUS LOCATIONS USE THE MAP TO SPOT SCENES

 

A. BULLETS OVER BROADWAY
CONSERVATORY GARDEN – FRENCH GARDEN

Miramax, 1994.
Screenplay by Woody Allen & Douglas McGrath.

 

B. THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
THE POOL’S NORTH PATHWAY

Touchstone Pictures/Buena Vista Pictures, 2001.
Screenplay by Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson.

 

C. MARATHON MAN
THE RESERVOIR’S EAST SIDE RUNNING PATH

Paramount Pictures, 1976.
Screenplay by William Goldman.

 

D. SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM
THE LAKE, AT OAK BRIDGE

Take One Productions/Janus Films, 1968.
Screenplay by William Greaves.

 

E. THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS
TREFOIL ARCH

Jalem Productions/Paramount Pictures, 1970.
Screenplay by Neil Simon.

 

F. SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
BALTO STATUE

MGM, 1993.
Screenplay by John Guare.

 

G. PORTRAIT OF JENNIE
THE DAIRY

Vanguard Films/Selznick Releasing Organization, 1948.
Screenplay by Peter Berneis & Paul Osborn.

 

H. CRUEL INTENTIONS
THE POND

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures, 1999.
Screenplay by Roger Kumble.

 

 

 

 

ABOUT DAVID LEVINE

Dividing his time between Berlin and New York, David Levine has bridged the worlds of contemporary theater and performance-based visual art with a body of work that examines the conditions of spectacle and spectatorship across a range of media including performance, opera, installation, and video. Levine’s work challenges the conventions of theatre by reorienting audience and performer relationships and objectives through looped performances and sculptural settings, while subverting visual arts expectations by introducing “conventional” narratives and the all-but invisible techniques of psychological realism.

 

 

 

PERFORMERS

Bullets Over Broadway
Mickey Solis (David)
Caroline Hewitt (Helen)

 

Cruel Intentions
Xandra Clark (Cecile)
Camara McLaughlin (Kathryn)
Cleo Handler (Kathryn – alternate)

 

Marathon Man
Adolfo Munguia Castilla (Babe)

 

The Out-of-Towners
Matthew Schneck (George Kellerman)
Autumn Dornfeld (Gwen Kellerman)

 

Portrait of Jennie
Aaron Matteson (Eben Adams)
Julia Blauvelt (Jennie Appleton)
Annie Parisse (Jennie Appleton – alternate)

 

The Royal Tenenbaums
Henry Packer (Royal)
Nancy Ellen Shore (Etheline)

 

Six Degrees of Separation
Matthew Frazier (Paul)
Jeanne Lauren Smith (Elizabeth)
Dash Barber (Rick)
Tarik Davis (Paul – alternate)
Craig Howe (Rick – alternate)

 

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm
Tony Torn (Freddy)
Mieko Gavia (Alice)

 

 

 

 

 

About the Project

Artworks and Artists

About the Exhibition

Public Programs

Central Park Conservancy

Project Support

 

 

OPENING MAY 15, 2015
CENTRAL PARK’S NORTH END

FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS 12-6PM
THROUGH JUNE 20, 2015

 

NOTE: PARTS OF THE EXHIBITION MAY
CLOSE IN THE EVENT OF HEAVY RAINFALL.

 

 

 

BEGIN YOUR VISIT AT THE CHARLES A. DANA DISCOVERY CENTER

ENTER THE PARK AT 110TH ST. AND 5TH AVE.