Aperture is pleased to release this special limited-edition photograph by David Levinthal from his well known series Wild West.  Levinthal's Wild West series was first published in Issue 108 of Aperture Magazine in 1988.  A central figure in the history of American postmodern photography, Levinthal stages uncanny tableaux using children’s toys, models, dolls, and play sets. Wild West (1987–2012), perhaps the artist’s best-known body of work, explores the American frontier and the Indian Wars, filtered through the nostalgic mythologizing of Hollywood westerns and late-twentieth-century advertising. This photograph will be featured in the Spring 2013 Aperture publication War Games.

 War Games reviews Levinthal's decades-long exploration of the American predilection for spectacle and staged scenarios as a way of engaging with war and conflict.  The volume will highlight selections from four series, including Hitler Moves East (1975-1977), a group of imagined scenes from World War II's Russian front that established his reputation and became a touchstone for a generation of conceptual artists beginning to stage fictional , mimetic scenes for the camera.  The monograph is published in conjunction with the Corcoran Museum of Art's upcoming exhibition War Games in May, 2013. 

David Levinthal (born in San Francisco, 1949) received an MFA in photography at Yale University in 1973. His photography explores themes such as sexuality and voyeurism, race and religion, and beauty and war through imaginative fabrications that animate human likenesses and their environments. The winner of numerous awards, including a 1995 Guggenheim Fellowship, Levinthal’s photographs are included in many important collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.