Cary Levine, associate professor in the art department in the College of Arts and Sciences, is among four highly promising Carolina faculty members in diverse fields who have been awarded the Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty.
The recipients will be recognized at the Sept. 19 Faculty Council meeting. Additional honorees are Gina Chowa, assistant professor in the School of Social Work; Mark Holmes, associate professor in the department of health policy and management, Gillings School of Global Public Health; and Garret Stuber, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry, School of Medicine.
The Hettleman Prize, which carries a $5,000 stipend, recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty or recently tenured faculty. Phillip Hettleman, who was born in 1899 and grew up in Goldsboro, established the award in 1986. He earned a scholarship to UNC, went to New York and in 1938 founded Hettleman & Co., a Wall Street investment firm.
With a specialization in contemporary art, criticism and theory, Levine is widely known for his innovative scholarship. “His research engages a central question of contemporary art history and criticism: the nature and possibility of the political in contemporary art,” said James Hirschfield, professor and art department chair.
Levine’s 2013 book Pay for Your Pleasures, published by the prestigious University of Chicago Press, focuses on three longtime California “bad-boy” artists: Mike Kelley, recently deceased; Paul McCarthy; and Raymond Pettibon.
“Professor Levine both interprets art in terms of a surrounding context and interprets that context through the art it generated,” said Mary Sheriff, distinguished professor of art history. “In this way, the visual arts are not merely a symptom of cultural upheaval, they are active participants in it.”
His current book project focuses on the interaction of art and digital technologies.
Since he came to Carolina in 2007, Levine has received several prestigious honors, including a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in art history and selection as a semester-long visiting scholar for the University of Texas at Austin’s Viewpoint Series focusing on contemporary art.
Read the full story in the University Gazette.
