This set of multiples is conceived as a mock-franchise kit for Levine's Restaurant and includes a Plexiglas sign, a red tablecloth, a green waiter's outfit, a plastic dinner plate, a number of postcards, and a bag of dried peas.
Les Levine is a performance-, installation- and photo- and video artist and lives in New York. Born and raised in Dublin, he studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London from the age of 14, before ultimately emigrating to North America. He first moved to Toronto in 1960, but settled in New York four years later. Maintaining his Canadian links, he won the first prize at the Canadian Sculpture Biennial in 1967 and was artist in residence at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax in 1973.
Levine is considered a pioneer of video art and was one of the few major artists to see the potential of the Portapak video recorder, first introduced by Sony in 1967. His work has always been political, subversive, public and often displayed or performed outside of an art context, such as his AIDS-related 1981 poster campaign WE ARE NOT AFRAID in New York subway trains or his billboard project BLAME GOD in London in 1985, referring to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Levine's Restaurant is a fine example of the artist's irreverent sense of humor and his endeavor to engage the audience and make the viewer an active participant of the work or performance.
There have been solo shows of his work at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo; and the Vancouver Art Gallery. His art is found in many public collections across North America and Europe including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; and Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. Most recently, in 2011, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin devoted an exhibition to Levine's work of the 1970s titled 'Mindful Media'.