Ethan Levitas

A self-taught artist born in 1971, Ethan Levitas obtained a degree in political science from Cronwell University in 1993. Six years later, he taught art in Japan, where he published a book on photography and identity: Conversation About Identity. For this book, he took his first series of photos: he immortalized his students at Nagano College, geishas with porcelain complexions. A work published in Polka#3.

  From 2004 to 2006, the photographer produced a remarkable series on New York subway trains, systematically affixed with an American flag after September 11 (Polka#3). Ethan Levitas questions American identity after the terrorist attack and the security abuses of the Bush administration.

Several other series on the subject will be born: In Advance in a Broken Arm (2009-2010) where he captures the police officers on the spot (Polka#9); Ten-Years Study (2011), portraits of New Yorkers around the Ground Zero construction site, ten years after September 11 (Polka#14); or Photographs in 3 Acts (2012) in which he places himself in the field of vision of video surveillance cameras, armed with a full-frame camera.

Ethan Levitas received the Discovery Prize from the 2008 Arles meetings, as well as numerous prizes in Japan.

The following year, in 2009, he was a finalist for the Cartier-Bresson prize. He has received, among others, grants from the Aaron Siskind Fellowship and the New York Foundation for the Arts.