Juan Downey

Juan Downey (May 11, 1940 – June 9, 1993) was a Chilean artist who was a pioneer in the fields of video art and interactive art.
Early life and education
Downey was born in Santiago, Chile. His father, David Downey V., was a distinguished architect in Chile, and following in his father's footsteps, Juan Downey studied to complete a Bachelor of Architecture in 1964 from the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile. In 1961, to further his studies and develop his artistic practice, Downey traveled to Europe. He spent a few months in Barcelona and Madrid, followed by Paris, where he lived for three years studying printmaking at Stanley William Hayter's legendary Atelier 17. During that time, he befriended artists Eugenio Téllez, Roberto Matta, Julio Le Parc, and Takis.
In 1965, Downey traveled to Washington, D.C., at the invitation of the Organization of American States to present a solo show of his work. It was there that Downey would meet his future wife, Marilys Belt. Downey stayed in Washington for a couple of years before moving with his family to New York in 1969.
Downey was an associate professor of art at the Pratt Institute in New York from 1970 until 1993. He died in New York on June 9, 1993, as a result of cancer.
Career
In New York, Downey would become involved with the groups Radical Software and Raindance collective, both of them early proponents of using video for artistic and political means.
Downey is recognized as a pioneer and early adopter of video art, but during his artistic career, he created an extensive body of work that also includes electronic and video sculptures, photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, performance, installation, and writing. Downey's drawings are especially remarkable and remained a constant practice of his. All of his major works were accompanied by drawings. They reflect not only his “sureness of hand,” as curators David Ross and James Harithas noted, but also his compelling ideas and visions, and they reveal a sustained practice of drawing over a lifetime.
The early period of Juan Downey's artistic practice consisted of painting, drawing, writing, and printmaking. After moving to the United States in 1965, he began to experiment with numerous forms of art that included creating interactive electronic sculptures, performances, happenings, and, in the late 1960s, video art. He wrote: “The universe is not an assemblage of independent parts, but an overlapping, interrelated system of energy. All my work relates to this vision.” These media permitted Downey to investigate ideas about invisible energy as well as to invite active participation by viewers of his work.
Two seminal series in Downey's career were Video Trans Americas, begun in 1971, and The Thinking Eye, begun in the mid-1970s. Video Trans Americas (VTA.) is often divided into two groups: the first group was developed from 1973 to 1976, and the second from 1976 to 1977. The two series stress Downey's preoccupation with political discourse, the self, the history of art, Western civilization, and Latin American identity.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
Solo exhibitions featuring Juan Downey's work include:
Juan Downey: Audio-Kinetic Electronic Sculptures, The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, (1968);
With Energy Beyond These Walls, Howard Wise Gallery, New York, NY, (1970);
Video Trans Americas, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX, (1976);
Juan Downey: Video Trans Americas, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, (1976);
Video Trans Americas, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY (1977);
Juan Downey: New American Filmmaker Series, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (1978);
Juan Downey, Matrix/Berkeley 16, University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA (1978);
Une Forêt 'Videoformes': Retrospective Juan Downey, Festival de la Création Vidéo, Clermont-Ferrand, France (1993);
Juan Downey: Instalaciones, Dibujos y Videos, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago (1995), Chile;
Juan Downey: Con energía más allá de estos muros, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Centre del Carme, Valencia, Spain (1997–98);
Retrospectiva de Video Arte de Juan Downey, Museo de Arte Moderno de Chiloé, Castro, Chiloé, Chile (2000);
Plateau of Humankind, Honorable Mention: “Excellence in Art Science and Technology,” 49th Venice Biennale Chilean Pavilion, Venice, Italy (2001);
Juan Downey: El ojo pensante, Sala de Arte Fundación Telefónica, Santiago, Chile (2010);
Juan Downey: The Invisible Architect, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY (2011-2012)
Juan Downey una utopía de la comunicación, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2013)
Group exhibitions
Downey's work was included in numerous group exhibitions as follows.
Some More Beginnings: An Exhibition of Submitted Works Involving Technical Materials and Processes, organized by Experiments in Art and Technology, in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum, Brookly, NY and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1968);
New Learning Spaces & Places, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (1974);
Whitney Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (1975, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991);
Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany, (1977);
Venice Biennale, US Pavilion, Venice, Italy, (1980);
Sydney Biennale, Sydney, Australia, (1982);
II Bienal de La Habana, Havana, Cuba, (1986);
The Thinking Eye, International Center for Photography, New York, NY, (1987);
Passages de l’image, Musée national d'Art moderne- Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, (1990);
Video Art: The First 25 Years, The Museum of Modern Art, and The American Federation of Arts, New York, NY, (1995);
Info Art ’95, Kwangju Biennale, Kwangju, Korea, (1995);
Electronic Highways, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, (1997);
Rational/Irrational, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany, (2008-2009)
The Looking Glass: Artist Immigrants of Washington, American University Art Museum, Washington, DC (2016)
VIVA ART VIVA, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, (2017);
Selected works
Interactive art
Against Shadows, 1968, is an interactive artwork that uses a grid of photo sensors to translate shadow thrown by the human body to a matching grid of wall-mounted lightbulbs.
In Invisible Energy Dictates a Dance Concert, 1969-1970, readings taken by geiger counters are sent by walkie-talkies to dancers in different rooms of the gallery.
Three-Way Communication by Light, 1972, used video, super 8 film and laser beams to join the actions of three performers painted in whiteface.
Plato Now, 1973
Performance art
Imperialistic Octopus, 1972
Energy Fields, 1972
Video Trans Americas Debriefing Pyramid, 1974
Video art
Early works
Fresh Air, 3/4" NTSC format, b/w 16 min., 1971
Plato Now, b/w, 30 min., 9 channels, 1972
Monument to the Charles River, b/w, 27 min., 2 channels, 1973
Rewe, video installation, 1991
Video Trans Americas
The Video Trans Americas (VTA) Series was a video-installation composed of videos recorded with a Sony portapak during Downey’s travels from North to Central and South America between 1973 and 1976. The first complete screening of the VTA video-installation was in the exhibition Landscape Studies in Video curated by David Ross at the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1975. The VTA video-installation in subsequent exhibitions at other museum institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art (1976) was exhibited differently. This was largely due to the spatial component entailed in the presentation of the work, a key concern for Downey, as well as his own artistic liberty to make changes or integrate other components in the installation. Therefore, there are a number of different versions in the way the VTA video installation was exhibited. The following videos were included in the installation:
Rumbo al Golfo, b/w, 27 min., 1973
Zapoteca, b/w, 27 min., 1973
Yucatán, 1973
Chile, color, 13 min., 1974
Guatemala, b/w, 27 min., 1973
New York/Texas I & II, b/w, 27 min., 2 channels, 1974
Nazca I & II, b/w 11 min., 2 channels, 1974
Lima/Machu Picchu, b/w, 27 min., 1975
Cuzco I & II, 1976
Inca I & II, 1976
Uros I & II, 1975
La Frontera I & II, 1976
Additional videos that are part of the VTA series:
Moving, b/w, 27 min., 1974
Publicness, b/w, 30 min., 1974
Central Zone, b/w, 27 min., 1975
Videodances, b/w, 30 min., 1975
Inca Split, 1976
Bi-Deo, 1976
In the Beginning, 1976
Guahibos, color, 26 min. 1976
Yanomami Healing I, b/w, 1977
Yanomami Healing II, b/w, 1977
The Circle of Fires, 1978 (video installation comes in 2 versions)
More Than Two, 1978 (installation)
The Abandoned Shabono, 1979
The Laughing Alligator, 1979
Chiloe, color, 18 min., 1981
Chicago Boys, color, 16 min., stereo, 1982–83
About Cages, 1986 (installation)
The Motherland, 1986
The Return of the Motherland, 1989
The Thinking Eye Series
Las Meninas (Maids of Honor), color, 20 min., 1975
Venus and Her Mirror, 1980 (video-installation)
The Looking Glass, 1981
Information Withheld, 1983
Shifters, 1984
Sinage, 1984 (video-installation)
Obelisk, 1985 (video-installation)
J.S. Bach, 1986
Bachdisc, 1988 (interactive video-disc)
Hard Times and Culture: Part One, Vienna fin-de-siecle, 1990
Collections
Downey’s work can be found in private collections and in the collections of major museums. Selected museum collections include:
The Tate Modern, London, UK;
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY;
Centre Pompidou/Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France;
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain;
The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, and
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, among others.
Awards
Downey was a Guggenheim fellow in the area of fine arts in 1971.
Selected bibliography
Valerie Smith, ed. Juan Downey: The Invisible Architect. Leipzig: MIT List Visual Art Center & The Bronx Museum, 2011.
González, Julieta, Nicolás Guagnini, Carla Macchiavello, and Valerie Smith. Juan Downey: el ojo pensante. Santiago: Fundación Telefónica, 2010.
Arévalo, Antonio, Marilys Belt de Downey, Juan Downey, José Goñi Carrasco, and Luisa Ulibarri Lorenzini. Juan Downey: La Biennale di Venezia, 49 Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte. Milan: Rodrigo Figueroa Schirmer, 2001.
Bonet, Eugeni, Douglas Davis, Juan Downey, Nuria Enguita, Coco Fusco, Juan Guardiola, John G. Hanhardt, James Harithas, and David Ross. Juan Downey: With Energy Beyond These Walls (Con energía más allá de estos muros). Valencia: Institut Valencià d’Art Modern and Centre del Carme, 1997-98.
Hanhardt, John G., and Ann D. Hoy. Juan Downey of Dream Into Study. Santiago: Editorial Lord Cochrane, 1987.
References
External links
Juan Downey in the Video Data Bank
Juan Downey auf culturebase.net
Centro de Arte Digital en Memoria de Juan Downey
1940 births
1993 deaths
Chilean film directors
Video artists
Artists from Santiago
Videographers