OPERA is a series of crisp, dramatic records of the world’s famous opera houses, all photographed with 4×5” and 8×10” Arca-Swiss cameras to maximize detail. Architecturally meticulous, this body of work serves to historically document these national and cultural landmarks, Leventi says in his artist statement.

The series covers more than 40 opera houses spanning four centuries and four continents, and is presented in a volume entitled Opera, published by Damiani with a foreword by Placido Domingo.

Leventi’s grandfather was a cantor, interned in the Soviet Union

“These are the spaces in which my grandfather, Anton Gutman, never got the chance to perform,” Leventi says. “Gutman was a cantor trained right after World War II by Helge Rosvaenge, a famous Danish operatic tenor who sang regularly with the State Operas in Berlin and Vienna. While Gutman was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Soviet Union, he performed for prisoners and officers. Nearly a half-century later, I grew up listening to him sing while he walked around our living room. As the son of two architects, I experience an almost religious feeling walking into a grand space such as an opera house.”

Leventi’s work also includes curtains from opera houses and other theatres.

Leventi’s photography is included in prestigious private and public collections including The Sir Elton John Collection and The Cleveland Museum of Art.

Leventi, based in the U.S., is a featured artist at Toronto’s Bau-Xi Photo Gallery

See many more opera houses at David Leventi’s artist page, Bau-Xi Photo Gallery, here.

David Leventi’s website, here.

Image at Top of Post: Drottningholm Palace Theatre, Stockholm, fujicolor crystal archive print mounted to dibond. 40 x 50 in.

Acclaimed Canadian photographer David Burdeny always take the viewer on a stunning journey, as he does again in his latest exhibition composed of images collected slowly over a period of years. (Above: Bank (Reimagined), Wroclaw, Poland, 2023 )

“Featuring an aray of nostalgic scenes, complete with colourful buildings, antique cars and idyllic cloud formations, each photograph seems like a postcard from the past,” Burdeny says of the exhibition running through March 3 at Jennifer Kostiuk gallery in Vancouver. (Above, Sanctuary, Birkirkara, Malta, 2016)

Printed in large format, the scenes are a confection with infinite depth and layered vantage points that invite the viewer to re-read them over time – questioning where you are and what you see.

David Burdeny, re the exhibition titled 10 Countries

Works from the exhibition are online at Jennifer Kostiuk gallery, here.

Three previous Art Junkie posts about David Burdeny here.

David Burdeny’s website, here.

His Instagram, here.

The images in Sand Sigh were collected during repeated visits to the shoreline of Lake Ontario, along the southern edge of the Toronto Islands, a dynamic landscape that changes easily with the weather.

To make a record of this shifting shoreline, silver-gelatin photographic papers were pressed directly into the space where sand meets water. “The movement of these elements have been recorded onto the paper’s surface, resulting in images that expand beyond the singular frame to contain motion and the passage of time,” Pasila says.

This Soundcloud podcast below is a conversation with Vitrines Gallery, where Pasila is on exhibition, about the process of her work.

Julie Pasila is a photo-based artist from Tkaronto/Toronto. She works with tactile, analogue processes to explore the landscape and its relationship to natural rhythms, timekeeping and place. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe and received support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Julie Pasila’s website here.

June Clark was born in Harlem but emigrated to Toronto in 1968 and spent decades capturing the city’s street scenes. This one photogrgraph of kids in an alley off Spadina Ave around 1975 stayed in my mind after this year’s ScotiaBank Contact Photo Festival. It epitomizes the laid-back, safe street ambience of that era in a city I love.

Clark, now in her 80s, is much more than a street photographer. Go to Daniel Faria Gallery to see her collage, sculpture and other installations.