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:

Group exhibitions

Downey's work was included in numerous group exhibitions as follows.

Selected works

Interactive art

Performance art

Video art

Early works

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: Additional videos that are part of the VTA series:

The Thinking Eye Series

Collections

Downey’s work can be found in private collections and in the collections of major museums. Selected museum collections include:

Awards

Downey was a Guggenheim fellow in the area of fine arts in 1971.

Selected bibliography