COMMON PLACES

Cultural identity in the urban environment of
four cities. (2000)

"Common Places" is about how cultural identity is manifested in ordinary urban spaces. Selecting four typical contemporary European cities that range in size from small town to small city, Mikael Levin photographed the way traces of each city's distinctive history mix with the everyday, reflecting not only current cultural and economic cross-influences but also an ambiguity about the past and the future. The cities are: Katrineholm (Sweden), Thessaloniki (Greece), Erfurt (Germany), and Cambrai (France).

Two bodies of work essentially play off each other. One set of photographs, presented as eight large-format prints from each city, looks at the commonalities between the four cities. The second body of work, presented in four albums of various dimensions, features photographs of one particular, distinctive aspect of each city.

Extending the process whereby he examined how these places see and show themselves, Levin exhibited "Common Places" in the four concerned cities, each time soliciting response texts written from the perspective of that city. The presentation of "Common Places" in New York, accompanied by the publication of the response texts, marked the completion of the project.

Project Resume:

Exhibitions:

Institut Français de Thessalonique,Thessaloniki, Greece, 1999
Katrineholms Konsthall, Katrineholm, Sweden, 1999
Maison Falleur, Cambrai, France, 2000
Konsthalle Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany
Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York

Publications:

Common Places. Newsprint publication with essay by Christopher Phillips, 1999
Common Places Response Catalog. Newsprint publication with essays by Jean-Francois Chevrier, Alain Demarquette, Beatrice Duprez, Catharina Gabrielsson, Hercules Papaioannou, Carole Parmat, Gatrude Sandquist, Kai Uwe Schierz, Ingo Schulze, Jacques Soulillou, and Alexandra Yerolympos.

Lecture:

Multipicity. Triennale di Milano, Milan: "Katrineholm and Other Common Places."

Funding:

French Institute, Thessaloniki, Greece
Galerie Am Fishmark - Konsthalle Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany
Centre Régional de la Photographie, Douchy-les-Mines, France
Ville de Cambrai, France
Katrineholms Konsthall, Katrineholm, Sweden

Collections:

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

Reviews and other publications:

Photosynkyria 10+1 "Mikael Levin" "Common Places" pp.24 - 27. Camera Obscura, Thesssaloniki, 1999
Eleftheros Typos "Three Separate Delicacies for the 11th Photosynkyria" 2/19/99
Typos Thessalonikis "Vagabondage Through the Lens of Four Photographers"
by Artemis Katsoura 2/21/99
Exostis "Photosynkyria 10+1" by Katerina Yiamalidou and Vaya Matzaroglou 2/26/99
Down Town "Photosynkyria. Why do Mikael Levin"s photographs remind us of fables?" 3/11/99
Lokalt "Fyra europeiska städer i en unik utställning" by Anita Norberg. 6/99
Folket "Bilder av Katrineholm, en vanlig stad" by Uffe Mosseberg 6/30/99
Katrineholms-Kuriren "En vanlig plats in en vanlig stad" by Leif Hasselgren 7/1/99
Svenska Dagbladet "Städer med samma själ" by Lisbeth Border-Bendegard 7/22/99
La Voix du Nord "Un Américain à Cambrai" by Pascal Gerard 1/14/00
L'Observateur du Cambrésis "Photos de ville, photos de vie" 1/20/00
La Voix du Nord "Cambrai et l'automobile, un rapport particulier" 1/19/00
Ostthüringer Seitung "Wehmütige Bilder der Erinnerung" by Annett Fuhrmann, 29/2/00
Thüringische Landeszeitung "Ein sehr genauer Blick von außen"
by Peter Alexander Fiedler, 2/3/00
Freies Wort "Zweifelnde Suche, banale Bilder" by Michael Plote, 23/3/00
Arkitektur. "Allmänna Platser" by Catharina Gabrielsson. Stockholm. October, 2000
Le Visiteur. "Common Places" Paris. Issue #6, Fall, 2000

Television:

TV4 Nyheter: "utställning i Katrineholm" 06/29/99, 6 PM
Chérie FM Exposition de Mikael Levin 01/13/00, 12:30 PM
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk Thüringen Journal 3/3/00
Lokales Fernsehen Erfurt Mikael Levin und Common Places 10/3/00