The Harpo Foundation is proud to announce the upcoming release of a new publication about artist and educator Ed Levine’s significant and lasting contributions to contemporary art as a critic, artist, educator and advocate starting in the 1960s. It is the first publication to document his most ambitious artwork, Vermont Village: A Conversation between Art, Water and the Land, a large-scale sculptural environment.
Scholarly essays illustrated with images from Levine’s archive illuminate different aspects of his oeuvre. One essay explores Levine’s early work as an artist and critic to identify the sources of his ideas around perception and the body’s role in artistic experience. A second highlights how Levine translates Thoreau’s themes of solitude, introspection, and humanity’s relationship with nature into a public art experience. Two essays focus on Vermont Village; one describes its genesis and construction, the other places the work within the genre of artist-built environments. Rounding out the essays are texts by artists who knew Levine and a detailed chronology laying out his interrelated contributions. The book concludes with a selection of Levine’s own writings, chosen for their passionate advocacy for individual creativity and the value of firsthand encounters with art.
Published by the Harpo Foundation and produced by Marquand Books, Seattle. Edited by art historian, Julie Reiss with contributions by Dennis Adams, Penny Balkin Bach, Julie Deamer, Annalise Flynn, Michael Mercil, Clarence Morgan, Julie Reiss, Maria Victoria Véliz and Michelle West.
Specs: paperback cover with flaps; 8 x 10 in.; 156 pages; printed in full color with 26 pages of plates
Available August 2026 on the Harpo Foundation website and through ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 75 Broad Street, Suite 630 New York, NY 10004