Andrew Levitas

In addition to a growing list of American and international gallery exhibitions, Levitas’ work has garnered attention through top auction houses, museums, and art fairs. 2012 highlights include a solo exhibition Metalwork Photograph: Sculptures at Phillips de Pury in Manhattan, as well as a ten-year retrospective Andrew Levitas: A Brief Survey 2002-2012 at New York University. 2014 highlights include the first solo exhibition ever presented at the highly anticipated Phillips, Berkeley square which included examples of Levitas’s earlier two-dimensional artwork in which he successfully fused metalwork and photography, as well as examples of the artist’s more recent works depicting crumpled sheets and three-dimensional freestanding installations, all made in his distinctive and innovative style.

Levitas’ installations are each composed of multi-paneled interlocking metal sheets whose collective impact transcends their individual materiality. The works’ strength is derived from their dual draw as photographs and sculptures, existing in an alternate dimension that intrigues and engages the eye. Accordingly, the artist emphasized the duplicitous nature of his art, stating that works are about "the beauty we discard and the filth we treasure." Other works included in the exhibition are crumpled sheets of metal that resonate with John Chamberlain’s mangled installations, inspired by the action Abstract Expressionist paintings that typified the Post-War New York School. However, as opposed to Chamberlain’s incorporation of readymades, Levitas’s creation and subsequent disfiguration of his own artwork adds a performative twist to his artwork that situates it at the vanguard of contemporary art. The result is a work that combines the imagery of a photograph with the presence of a sculpture. While these works are printed as editions, they function as unique objects since each print differs, depending on the level of hand tooling.

Levitas’ "organic abstractions" (paintings built from home made pigments, canvas, and organic materials – in some cases entire trees) have also received critical acclaim. The work, often reflective of Los Angeles life, is in part a commentary on emotion and the way we choose to express ourselves, as well as the ways in which we insulate ourselves from essential truth. The work also stresses a larger discourse on nature, the organic and its place in the contemporary world. It was with this body of work that in December 2008, Levitas was honored as one of only a handful of American painters ever accepted to the prestigious Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts since its founding in the 1860s.

Levitas’ feature film directorial debut Lullaby, from his own screenplay, stars Academy Award Nominees Amy Adams, Richard Jenkins, Terrence Howard, Anne Archer, Academy Award Winner Jennifer Hudson, as well as Garrett Hedlund, and Jessica Brown-Findlay. The film, an exploration of patients’ rights, was described by Pete Hammond (Deadline) as a "strong human drama" with "Jenkins a true actor's actor, delivering a very Oscar-worthy supporting turn."

Currently, Levitas is in post-production on his latest directing project entitled Minamata starring Academy Award nominee Johnny Depp as W. Eugene Smith, the prolific Life magazine photographer, BAFTA and Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy as Robert Hayes, a fictional Life magazine editor, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Mitsuo Yamazaki, a character modeled after resistance fighter Teruo Kawamoto. The film follows Smith’s 1971 journey to the Japanese fishing village of Minamata to bear witness to the devastation of its townspeople by mercury poisoning caused by the Chisso corporation, with dark assistance from the Japanese government and the Yakuza. He ultimately paid with his life, but the images Smith smuggled out of Japan are amongst the most important ever taken and are considered by many to have birthed the modern environmental movement.

2017 was a prolific year for Levitas, who produced British film The White Crow written by David Hare and directed by Ralph Fiennes. It stars Oleg Ivenko as the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, chronicling his life and dance career. It is inspired by the book Rudolf Nureyev: The Life by Julie Kavanagh. It premiered at the 2018 Telluride Film Festival and the 2018 BFI London Film Festival. The film also screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Cinemania (Bulgaria) and Febiofest (Czech Republic). Ralph Fiennes received the Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the Tokyo International Film Festival, with the film receiving a Tokyo Grand Prix nomination. The film was released on March 22, 2019 in the UK (StudioCanal) and on April 26, 2019 in the US (Sony Pictures Classics). The New York Times wrote “The White Crow is a portrait of the artist as a young man, an attempt to show the complex array of factors — biographical, psychological, social, political — that led to the moment when the 23-year-old dancer made a decision that would change the history of ballet: Nureyev became Nureyev by defecting from Russia to the West at Le Bourget airport in France in June 1961… Throughout [the film], Fiennes and Hare suggest the extraordinary will and curiosity that drove Nureyev to dance, and to seek out art and culture wherever he could.”

Levitas brought to life director Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s own story in Farming which charts the extraordinary journey of a young fostered Nigerian boy who, struggling to find an identity, falls into warped world of a racist skinhead gang in 1980s England. At six weeks old, Enitan (Zephan Amissah) is left in the care of a white working-class family in the dock-town of Tilbury, in Essex. His new surrogate mother, Ingrid (Kate Beckinsale), makes for a complex, but dubious foster parent. Unsure of his place in the world, and lacking a mother’s love, desperate to belong the teenage Enitan (Damson Idris) spirals into self-destruction, falling in with a local skinhead gang led by Levi (John Dagleish), who forces Enitan to learn to loathe his own skin. When all seems lost, a sympathetic teacher, Miss Dapo (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), offers him one last shot at redemption. Screen Daily wrote of the film, “Actor turned director Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje makes an arresting feature debut with Farming. Told with raw emotion and lurid violence, it transforms elements of his life story into a disturbing, eye-opening coming of age drama.” Farming premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September in the Discovery Section. The film won the Michael Powell Award at the 2019 Edinburgh Film Festival. Lionsgate UK released the film in the United Kingdom on 11 October 2019, followed by a United States release on 25 October.

Levitas produced 2019 film Georgetown from Christoph Waltz in his feature directorial debut. Waltz plays the lead character Ulrich Mott, an ambitious social climber who becomes the main suspect in the death of his wealthy - and much older - wife (Vanessa Redgrave). The film is based on a true story. Georgetown had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27, 2019. The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, noting that "it's the kind of serious but broadly appealing, modestly scaled picture that people love to say doesn't exist any more."

In 2018, Levitas produced My Zoe from writer and directorJulie Delpy. My Zoe premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the prestigious Platform Prize program. Isabelle (Julie Delpy), a geneticist recovering from a toxic marriage, is raising her only daughter, Zoe, with her contentious ex-husband (Richard Armitage). Zoe means everything to her mother and so when tragedy strikes the fractured family, Isabelle uses her expertise to take matters into her own hands. As this mother’s love knows no bounds, Isabelle travels to Russia in seeking the help of a world-renowned fertility physician who Isabelle believes can help bring back her little girl. IndieWire raved that “Delpy’s ability to believe in both her audience and her wild story remains compelling throughout the film... Delpy earns every minute of the story, one that shows off her ability (and desire) mix things up with a fresh eye.” Warner Bros. will soon release the film in Germany.

Levitas is the founder of Metalwork Pictures a media production company which develops, produces, and finances original content. Titles include Minamata (Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Hiroyuki Sanada), My Zoe (Julie Delpy, Daniel Brühl, Gemma Arterton, Richard Armitage), Georgetown (Christoph Waltz, Vanessa Redgrave, Annette Bening), The White Crow (Ralph Fiennes), Farming (Kate Beckinsale, Gugu Mbatha-Raw), The Gateway (Bruce Dern, Olivia Munn, Frank Grillo), Last Moment of Clarity (Samara Weaving, Udo Kier, Brian Cox), The Quarry (Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham), Flower (Zoey Deutch), At Any Price (Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron), Affluenza (Nicola Peltz), and The Art of Getting By (Emma Roberts, Freddie Highmore). In 2017, Levitas launched film finance entity Rogue Black.

In 2015, Levitas created the CUBA X LEVITAS as part of an artist collaboration with the skate brand Supra.

Since October 2013, Levitas has been in a relationship with Welsh classical-crossover singer Katherine Jenkins. The pair were engaged in April 2014, and married at Hampton Court Palace on September 27, 2014. Jenkins gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter named Aaliyah Reign Levitas, on September 30, 2015. The baby weighed in at 7lb. With his wife, Levitas wrote the song "8 Nights of Joy," which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and was on her album "Home Sweet Home."

In 2004 Levitas burst onto the art scene with his "Metalwork Experiment." Developed by the artist, Metalwork Photography photographic sculptures are formed by a process involving the transfer of photographs onto custom transparencies that are in turn melted onto hand detailed sheets. The result is a work that combines the imagery of a photograph with the presence of a sculpture. While these works are printed as editions, they function as unique objects since each print differs, depending on the level of hand tooling.

Levitas was born in New York City. He attended Horace Mann School and then Dalton School in Manhattan. In high school, Levitas became a member of the downtown repertory company, City Kids, as well as a published writer. After graduating from the Dalton School, he attended New York University. He graduated in 2000 with a degree from the Gallatin School of NYU. He is Jewish.

Andrew Levitas (born September 4, 1977) is an American painter, sculptor, filmmaker, writer, producer, photographer, and actor.