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Michelle Litvin
iMichelle Litvin is a visual artist. For the past decade, Litvin has used photography to produce case studies of the built environment. She reports on the user-centered experience of designed space: real people in real time. While she reckons the architect's idealized vision, she also reconnoiters the play of ambient light and traffic, seeking angles that reveal different planar vantage points. This is not to defy dictates of stage lighting and mise-en-scene styling for an imperial lens. Rather, she aims for noticed moments to distill contingent beauty. Through this work, a perceptual phenomenology captures space. Serendipity of situations leads the narrative. This approach breaks habits of framing with one-point perspective, literally and figuratively.
Her photographs of the built environment frequently appear in The New York Times and Interior Design magazine and have won several awards.
Litvin is currently an adjunct assistant professor at the School of Architecture at UIC. In 2008, she was awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and is working with the foundation on a new archiving initiative. Serving on the board of Extension gallery for architecture, Litvin also is documenting and archiving all of the exhibitions. She has exhibited in Chicago and New York and her photographs are in private collections throughout the country. In collaboration with the Hyde Park Art Center, Litvin is documenting how the Center's building, designed by Doug Garofalo, functions by tracking the making of architectural sculptures with the artists in their studios through the installations at the Center and the community's interaction with the pieces. Her work with Juan Angel Chávez lead to a catalogue of his installation Speaker Project, which was published by HPAC in the spring of 2008.
Until recently, she ran a gallery, called In Process, and showed projects in a critical phase of development to provide a salon setting for furthering the artist’s ideas and projects.
Before starting her own firm in the mid 1990’s, Litvin worked as a journalist in Chicago, writing and photographing for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader. From 1989-1991, she reported and photographed in Beijing for Newsweek and worked as a photo editor for the magazine in New York while attending the master’s program at Columbia University in Middle East Languages and Cultures with a focus on Central Asia from 1987-1989. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in philosophy from Wheaton College, Massachusetts in 1982.
Studies of Designed Space
Michelle Litvin is a visual artist. For the past decade, Litvin has used photography to produce case studies of the built environment. She reports on the user-centered experience of designed space: real people in real time. While she reckons the architect's idealized vision, she also reconnoiters the play of ambient light and traffic, seeking angles that reveal different planar vantage points. This is not to defy dictates of stage lighting and mise-en-scene styling for an imperial lens. Rather, she aims for noticed moments to distill contingent beauty. Through this work, a perceptual phenomenology captures space. Serendipity of situations leads the narrative. This approach breaks habits of framing with one-point perspective, literally and figuratively.
Her photographs of the built environment frequently appear in The New York Times and Interior Design magazine and have won several awards.
Litvin is currently an adjunct assistant professor at the School of Architecture at UIC. In 2008, she was awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and is working with the foundation on a new archiving initiative. Serving on the board of Extension gallery for architecture, Litvin also is documenting and archiving all of the exhibitions. She has exhibited in Chicago and New York and her photographs are in private collections throughout the country. In collaboration with the Hyde Park Art Center, Litvin is documenting how the Center's building, designed by Doug Garofalo, functions by tracking the making of architectural sculptures with the artists in their studios through the installations at the Center and the community's interaction with the pieces. Her work with Juan Angel Chávez lead to a catalogue of his installation Speaker Project, which was published by HPAC in the spring of 2008.
Until recently, she ran a gallery, called In Process, and showed projects in a critical phase of development to provide a salon setting for furthering the artist’s ideas and projects.
Before starting her own firm in the mid 1990’s, Litvin worked as a journalist in Chicago, writing and photographing for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader. From 1989-1991, she reported and photographed in Beijing for Newsweek and worked as a photo editor for the magazine in New York while attending the master’s program at Columbia University in Middle East Languages and Cultures with a focus on Central Asia from 1987-1989. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in philosophy from Wheaton College, Massachusetts in 1982.