DANIEL LEVINE | Holdfast | AL’S OFFICE
April 19 - May 22, 2026
Daniel Levine (New York City, 1959 - 2022) earned a BFA in 1981 and an MFA in 1983 from the University at Buffalo.
In addition to exhibiting his paintings in Europe and the United States since 1984, in 1989 he curated Amerikarma, World View in 1985, significant exhibitions that included several artists that would later achieve international success. At the time of his death, Levine was formulating another curatorial project, Another Log Cabin, Another Bird House, Another Ashtray.
He was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant in 1989 and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in 1989. His work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally in venues including Paula Cooper, NY, The High Museum, Atlanta, GA, Contemporary Arts Museum-Houston, TX, The Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, Switzerland, Guekens & De Vil, Antwerp, 303 Gallery, NY, and The Buffalo AKG Museum, Buffalo, NY.
His paintings and works on paper are in the collections of the Panza Collection, Varese, Italy, The Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, Switzerland, The Buffalo AKG Museum, Buffalo, NY, Museum of Contemporary Art - Tucson, AZ, The Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY, and numerous private collections in the United States and Europe.
His exhibitions have been reviewed in such publications as ArtForum, Art in America, Artnews, and Arts Magazine, Artcritical, The New York Times, among others.
MELANIE’S OFFICE
DANIEL LEVINE
On View: April 28 - June 3, 2022
View Exhibition
Daniel Levine, who died suddenly on 01/22/22, was a curmudgeon with a huge heart. He had very strong opinions, both positive and negative, as well as the knowledge to back them up.
Daniel was also a beautiful painter – focused on a project, disciplined and wildly creative within the boundaries he set for himself. Unfortunately, he had bad luck of painting white paintings – bad luck because everybody knows that Robert Ryman paints white paintings, and that idea makes really seeing Daniel’s work very difficult.
I’ve said this before, but here’s what I think makes for good art: experiencing it forces you out of the quotidian cognitive-perceptual habits that sustain you day-to-day; it makes you slow down. If there's nothing to think about, you just have to be with something. In Daniel's work, there's nothing there but a white-ish canvas; the field of white is carefully bounded, and within the field, the surface is typically rich and varied, but exquisitely non-verbal. It forces you to abandon your cognitive and perceptual biases, including the one comparing him to Robert Ryman. - Al Ravitz
DANIEL LEVINE – Painters/Paintings
September 17 – October 23, 2015
Main Gallery and Waiting Room
VIEW PAINTERS/PAINTINGS IMAGES
57W57ARTS is pleased to present a two-part exhibition with artist Daniel Levine. Painters/Paintings brings together a selection of abstract paintings curated by Levine and a solo show of monochrome paintings by Levine.
Painters, in THE WAITING ROOM, will include work by Rudolf de Crignis, Helmut Federle, Paul Feeley, Ron Gorchov, Marcia Hafif, Alfred Jensen, Phil Sims, Peter Tollens, and John Zurier
Paintings will consist of work by Daniel Levine. Since 1990 Levine has created monochrome paintings. By slowly building up layers of paint, he exploits difference: for each work the canvas is often a slightly different color, tone, or weave; it may be stretched at different depths, creating thinner or thicker profiles; the shapes are almost but not quite square; and thin borders amplify the paintings’ varying surfaces. The process, which can take several years, is documented on the back, creating a kind of diary for each work’s growth.
Roberta Smith in the New York Times described Levine’s work as follows: “You may begin this quietly forceful exhibition of meticulously made white-on-white paintings thinking of Robert Ryman, but chances are he will have faded by the end. Mr. Levine applies a few thin coats of oil paint on fine cotton. He works in minute, nearly invisible brush strokes most of the time, and you can almost count the layers of paint. He seems almost to love the cotton as much as the paint, and their tenderly maintained balance is a palpable strength.”