Carve; The Mystic Is Nourished By This Sphere, 2023

5 slides // Mandel Institute Fellowship Application 2023

Description

Carve; The Mystic is Nourished From This Sphere continues the methodology established in DIG (2021), in a new site-specific work created for The Contemporary Jewish Museum as a part of Levine’s solo exhibition, To Survive I Need You To Survive. In both artworks, Levine invites participants to contribute by sharing notes about the grief they may be experiencing in their own lives—be it the loss of loved one, or more abstract forms of grief like the experiences of loss that come with aging, watching children grow, the end of a friendship or romantic relationship, the destruction of a habitat, or a missed opportunity. In Carve, Levine engraves visitors’ grief notes into the surface of the constructed hole. As the carvings accumulate over the course of the exhibition, the artwork increasingly represents the strength and compassion that come with the understanding that no one is truly alone in their grief. During the run of the exhibition, Levine will carve for three 7-day periods, first just before the show opens, again midway in April, and concluding with a final week in July, that coincides, as with DIG, with a weeklong series of programs organized around grief led by artists, activists, and spiritual leaders. In both works, the hole serves as a starting point for a symbolic adaptation of the 7 day Jewish mourning ritual of shiva.

- description adapted from gallery text, CJM, 2023

For more images of this project, including video and details, and gallery views, please see my instagram page.