Ethan Levitas

A self-taught artist born in 1971, Ethan Levitas graduated from Cronwell University in 1993 with a degree in political science. 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 photographs: he immortalized his students from 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). In it, Ethan Levitas questions American identity after the terrorist attack and the security excesses of the Bush administration.
Several other series on the subject were born: In Advance in a Broken Arm (2009-2010) where he captures police officers on the spot (Polka#9); Ten-Years Study (2011), portraits of New Yorkers around the Ground Zero construction site, ten years after 9/11 (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 Lévitas received the Prix Découverte at the 2008 Rencontres d'Arles, as well as numerous awards in Japan. The following year, in 2009, he was a finalist for the Cartier-Bresson prize. He has received, among others, the Aaron Siskind Fellowship and the New York Foundation for the Arts.