THE ABANDONING

2010

2 Channel Video 2010 06:00 min

I filmed in a house where a notorious NYC event planner (Studio 54) and florist lived.
In the months after his sudden death of a heart attack the plants and ivy in his Greenwich Village townhouse continued to grow with the help of an automated watering system, and vegetation was starting to overtake the house.
One channel shows the townhouse windows from the inside while the other shows the same windows from the townhouse’s exterior.
The work toys with the idea of what will happen if humans cease to exists and maintain the man built world, within a short time vegetation will take over our cities.

Levy’s video installation The Abandoning re-defines our sense of home as a temporary structure and exposes the vulnerability of architectural constructs. Focused on a neglected Greenwich Village building with interior and exterior overrun by climbing ivy, Levy films and animates this home site with natural growths to explore ideas of decay and renewal, chaos and order. Executed with a playfulness that is at once both academic and lyrical, Levy delivers a formal investigation of entropy with an allegorical edge. – Nicelle Beauchene Gallerist