read1 of 1
discover
David Levine
by
Jessica Loudis
People

I met David in the summer of 2010 after a mutual friend invited me to a dinner party at his apartment on Schwedter Straße. He cooked lemon chicken, Ayn Rand and the beginnings of what would become his essay on “International Art English” were discussed, and I remember thinking that this is what I had hoped Berlin would be like—clever people smoking and arguing into the night in darkened apartments. I saw David again and again over the course of the next several years, in Berlin and New York as he continually came up with reasons to escape teaching obligations and return home for a visit. (He’s marrying the best of these reasons in June.)   Anybody who knows or has met David knows that he’s generally the most charming and charismatic person in the room. He has an exceptional ability to make art of theater, theater of art, and doctrinaire practitioners of both uncomfortable. Since I’ve known him, he’s created an opera inspired by Milli Vanilli, starred in a recurring live talk show, and produced, to borrow the New York Times’s description, a genre-bending art-theater project. They’ve all been not only smart and not only well executed, but genuinely, and remarkably, fun. You should look them up. The final thing I’ll say about David is that in addition to being a generous friend he’s a wonderful collector of people. You know the type—somebody who is willing to reach outside their own comfort zone and bring others in. It’s a rare quality, and he’s accumulated many lovely friends over the years. I consider myself lucky to be among them.

People
David Levine