PHONE: 2(oh)6 - 853 - (oh)925
EMAIL: leavittmichael (at) gmail (dot) com ——- same as below
call or email for SHIPPING & STUDIO ADDRESS
GO TO THE ONLINE, INTERACTIVE 3-D STUDIO TOUR
Intuition Kitchen Productions = Mike Leavitt
U.S. artist Mike Leavitt is the CEO, sole employee, and manufacturing machine of Intuition Kitchen Productions: a one-man company of fine craft, sculpture, portraiture, performance, education, architecture, and animation. An extreme boredom for “normal” art has pushed Leavitt into a variety of undefinable projects that cross between art and product, from ornate objects to curio kitsch. Since quitting Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute of Art as a freshman with a 4.0 GPA in 1997, Leavitt has been busy. Leavitt’s “Art Army” action figures are hand-made one-off “toys” depicting the surly band of marauders that’ll one day take over the earth. Spanning a range of historical subjects from Van Gogh to Tupac, Leavitt has stop-motion animated the articulating figures into movie shorts. The figurative format also shifted to include custom wedding cake toppers, now a lucrative side-project. His “Hip Hopjects” are nostalgic throw-backs to ’80’s ephemera, with classic shoes, tapedecks, and other accoutrements replicated to exact specifications with cardboard, brown paper bag, and other such trash found in the street. The “Penny Places” are an ongoing series of “lucky” pennies (U.S. 1-cent coins) found in the street, painted with tiny landscapes to depict the exact location where the penny was found. “ArtCards” are Leavitt’s hand-drawn trading cards of artists, sold in wrapped packs with a stale old crumbly piece of bubble gum. Leavitt’s work has been featured on Comcast G4TV’s “Attack of the Show” and CBC Radio, and in periodicals from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Italy, Australia and Brazil, and in TimeOut NewYork, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Los Angeles Magazine. He’s been commissioned for custom work from Italy, Israel and all over the U.S. Leavitt is represented by galleries in London, New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. He has work in the collections of Eddie Vedder, Geena Davis, Nike President Mark Parker, and in notable book publications such as Dot Dot Dash: Designer Toys, Action Figures and Character Art by Gestalten press in Germany. He comes from a conceptual art background, with many generations of interactive performance art, motorized sculpture, and multi-sensory installations from his younger days. His concern for craft and hard labor has served Leavitt in several self-designed architectural projects, including a set of “Portable Homeless Shelters” built from recycled materials used in the Seattle area since 2001. Whether it’s intricate miniatures or industrial-grade objects, Mike Leavitt’s hands are always busy.
CLICK HERE TO READ ARTIST STATEMENTS: “THE REALITY” - or - “THE PHILOSOPHY”
Books
Press
Resume
| .
. SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITS 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006-07 2006 2005 2004-05 2003- “ArtArmy® vs. The MAN”, Showbox, Seattle.WA . SELECTED PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS ‘The Approval Matrix’, New York Magazine, 09.26.11 AWARDS 2008- MoveOn.org/ObeyGiant Manifest Hope Gallery Finalist RESIDENCIES AND COMMISSIONS 2010- America Online Artists, Series 2 (updated 02.15.12) |
.
. SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITS 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2001-05- Art-o-Mat VendingMachines, Whitney Museum, New York 2004- ArtPack, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle.WA 2003 2001 2000- “Articipations” VideoPortfolio, TVSea Ch.21, Seattle.WA 1999- “Infinities”, ArtsEdge Music and Arts Festival, Seattle.WA 1998- “Infinite System”, TAM Commencement Gallery, Tacoma.WA . PERMANENT COLLECTIONS Eddie Vedder, Seattle.WA SELECTED CLASSES AND TEACHING 2011- Guest Lecture, Parsons/The New School, New York.NY EDUCATION 2001- Bachelor of Arts, The Evergreen State College, Olympia.WA |
Art isn’t fun. I like fun.
It’s time to have fun again. I’d rather paint anything but canvas and sculpt anything but static objects. I picture my work living rooms not museums. Art should have the coziness of an old family house. If you aren’t allowed to touch the art, you should at least be allowed to laugh out loud at it. This doesn’t require a super-size blockbuster budget or the cold serenity of academic ramblings. Last century’s unchecked self-expression is partly why people don’t “get” or care about art anymore. Today’s art lacks funding and media coverage, as it should. Movies, music and TV provide more information, more relevance to peoples’ lives and are cheaper to acquire.
I’m a Seattle native, working from my home studio in White Center, ‘Rat City’. I’m full-time everyday, trudging away in the sleepy Seattle art market. I’m not a darling to hipsters nor am I mainstream enough for art galleries obsessed with conceptual art. I’m not elitist enough to oppose out-sourcing mass editions of my work. I will, now and forever, always prioritize making my work affordable and accessible to a mass market. I make a modest income from a 50+ hour week and living solely off my work. It’s only possible with a low-key lifestyle and low overhead. I pour my heart, soul, thoughts, energy, and sweat into everything I make. The sculpting machines at the ends of my arms need fuel to manufacture labor-intensive art.
Though I dabble in both, neither lowbrow nor conceptual art address the urgent need for relevance. The art market is the least-regulated field of Capitalism on Earth. This embarrassing elitism doesn’t match art’s overwhelmingly liberal politics. Pro-actively criticizing this hot button is a goldmine of potential revolution. I work politically without heavy-handed messaging. I record collective experience and shared iconography. Satire and humor help the medicine go down. Irony and juxtaposition set current events in history. This reverses art’s trend towards irrelevance. I’m completely motivated by the outside world. I don’t have the old cathartic impulses from Freudian angst. I’m inspired by a rigorous study of history, an inspection of the consumerist culture I was raised in, and a respect for the natural beauty of my Seattle birthplace. I precariously straddle art and product while living off these systems. I make consumer products that confront culture without materialism. I make fun of my gallery shows in real time. I install shows like big-box retail outlets with over-done signage and over-sized price tags. I consciously make elite-level fine art sculpture look like mass-market product. I do old school craft on traditional materials. Laboriously making art look machine-made transcends physical material with comedic irony. Consumerism-as-subject-matter speaks to a mainstream audience long disinterested in fine art.
I’m on this planet to work with my hands. Too many ‘weekday warriors’ fight to align work with passion. Too many complacently disengaging from life if they fail. Life is too short without the best of our talents and passions at the plate. I don’t struggle to find my place. So I struggle with my work’s limited ability to aid the worldwide issues I can’t ignore. I always hope my art can help the world more than it ever will. The world is in constant peril. Visual art, the load-bearing cornerstone of a healthy culture, is dying. Too much of the art world is content with this status quo. Shedding the fear of politics can re-ignite art’s pilot flame at the core of culture. A humanity with no connection to the arts is composed of people with no connection to each other. If no one else is engaged with effectively changing these circumstances, I am.