All of the images in Baseball were produced with Polacolor ER 20x24 Land Film. This film and the large format Polaroid 20x24 camera have been, and continue to be, integral to my work as an artist.

I first began using Polaroid film extensively in my artwork around 1984. At the time, I was using small HO scale figures to create little noirlike dioramas and photographing them with an SX-70 camera and close-up lens. The Polaroid film was really my first serious venture into the use of color in my work, and it provided many advantages for me. The instant nature of the film created an interactive process. I could immediately see the results of my work and adjust my scenes to create exactly the image that I was looking for. Being able to work so quickly also enhances the sense of discovery. Working, as I have for more than thirty years, with toy figures and models, you often will discover new ideas as the work progresses. The instant viewing that Polaroid provides is a critical part of this process.

In 1986, Polaroid first gave me the opportunity to use one of their five largeformat 20x24 cameras in New York. The richness and deeply saturated colors of the 20x24 Polaroid films, as well as the scale of these large prints, add another unique dimension to my work. The large format of the Polaroid camera completely removes the sense of scale from the objects that I am photographing, leaving the viewer without any sense of the actual size of the toy or figure being photographed. This further enhances the power of the images and increases their ability to force viewers to rethink and reimagine what toys are perhaps really about.

David Levinthal
March 2006
New York City

Selected Public Colections
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY