Opening & Artist Reception | Saturday, January 11, 4–6pm
Municipal Bonds is pleased to present Artifacts from the SKZ, marking Los Angeles-based artist Dan Levenson's debut exhibition with the gallery, on view January 11–March 1, 2025. Through painting, works on paper, and sculpture, Levenson constructs artifacts from the ruins of the State Art Academy, Zürich (SKZ)—an imaginary institution rooted in modernist ideals. These works evoke an environment that was shaped by geometry, precision, and methodical discipline, reflecting a pedagogical system as rigorous as it was deeply human.
Levenson's paintings, rendered in oil and graphite on linen, feature crackled surfaces that evoke the passage of time, balancing formalist fidelity with the patina of their excavation. These abstract compositions, metrically scaled and divided into geometric structures, follow the academy's guiding principles. Some remain intentionally incomplete, hinting at the ongoing processes of learning and making. His works on paper, executed in oil and graphite on blotting paper, amplify this contrast, appearing both fragile and deliberate. Sculptural works—crafted from plywood and paint—extend the narrative, transforming desks, drawing horses, and cloth aprons into artifacts imbued with wear and care, reflecting imagined histories.
Each painting is titled with a unique name, randomly drawn from a list Levenson generated using Swiss names, as if signed by a student. These titles, used only once, lend the works a sense of history and a community shaped by invention. The interplay between the academy's systems and students mirrors the contradictions of creativity itself: how institutional frameworks provide structure while leaving room for personal expression. This duality transforms Levenson's works into meditations on art-making as both a collective endeavor and an individual pursuit.
In Artifacts from the SKZ, Levenson constructs an academy poised between preservation and reinvention. Through surfaces that suggest both endurance and transformation, his works bridge artifact and invention, reflecting on how creativity persists within structure. The language of forms and articulated details evoke traditions that are simultaneously upheld and reimagined, inviting reflection on the evolving relationship between discipline and freedom, order and innovation—then and now.
Dan Levenson is a Los Angeles-based visual artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and video. His work explores the relationship of art and freedom through the lens of art education. The paintings and objects he creates represent artifacts rescued from the ruins of an imaginary art school: the State Art Academy, Zurich (its initials in Swiss-German dialect are SKZ). As a painter, he completes classroom exercises for imaginary students, following the strict formalist pedagogy of the SKZ. Metric standard sized canvases are divided geometrically to create abstract compositions. He expands on the story through performance, installation and video. Levenson has taught performative drawing lessons taken from the school's curriculum at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, American Jewish University, Los Angeles, USC's Roski School of Art, and the Saas-Fee Summer Institute in Berlin, Germany.
Levenson has exhibited at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Philadelphia Art Alliance; James Fuentes Online; Vielmetter Los Angeles; Honor Fraser, Los Angeles; Praz-Delavallade, Paris and Los Angeles; de boer Gallery, Los Angeles; Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, Los Angeles, PARTICIPANT INC, NYC; LAXART, Los Angeles; White Columns, NYC; and Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA. He is the recipient of a Pollock/Krasner grant and Yaddo and MacDowell Fellowships, among other awards.
Dan Levenson: Artifacts from the SKZ is presented by Municipal Bonds, located at Minnesota Street Project, 1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco; on view January 11–March 1, 2025, Tuesday–Saturday, 12–5pm. For more information, please contact Emily Miller at 917.450.0583, info@municipalbonds.art.
