For more than five decades, the work of Irish-Canadian-American artist Les Levine has taken shape across a wide range of techniques, media and approaches. This publication surveys Levine’s prolific—and protean—output from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, a time when the artist was closely connected to the Toronto art scene. Widely acknowledged as a founder of media art, Levine would become known for developing new approaches to artmaking, establishing new categories such as “camera art,” “disposable art,” “media sculpture,” “software art,” “body control systems,” and what he would term “Mott art.” Constantly expanding the parameters of what could be understood as art, Levine’s artworks addressed the conditions and experiences of a rapidly changing media landscape in ways that proved uniquely prescient of contemporary concerns and sensibilities.
This 192-page publication features texts by Sarah Robayo Sheridan, Sunny Kerr and Dennis Young, along with extensive documentation from Levine’s archives. The book is designed by Underline Studio and published by Oakville Galleries.