Platonic
Synopsis
In Dani Leventhal’s Platonic, geometric spectors twirl in space; pet cats foam at the mouth; a little boy mistakes his junkie father for a superhero; and a confused adolescent worries he has sired a centaur. Platonic references both the ancient philosopher’s metaphysics of ideal Forms, which simultaneously exist outside our perceptions and yet give rise to them, and the related meaning in common parlance of non-romantic love. Leventhal trains her searching lens on the distance separating bodies, moments, and perspectives. The result is a study in the awkward gaps between appearance and reality, seeing and understanding, desire and its object. – Anneka Harre
Bio
Dani Leventhal is an assistant professor of drawing at The Ohio State University. In 2009 she received an MFA in film/video from Bard College. She has screened her single-channel videos at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Gene Siskel Film Center, PS1, Cine Cycle, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Union Docs, VIEWS of the Avant Guard and Anthology Film Archives. Leventhal is a recipient of the Kuzuko Trust, Wexner Center Film/Video Residency, the Milton Avery Fine Arts Award and the Astraea Visual Arts Grant. Her drawings and videos are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Vassar, UIC, Earlham College and Yale University.
