Works
1999 – Current
La Somme de
L'Oxygéne Dans une
Cabine Téléphonique
2008
Just Taking the
Building To Its Logical
Conclusion
2008
The Adventures of
Darius and Downey
as Told To Ed Zipco
2008
House of Cards III
2007
Our Sculpture
Project Münster
2007
Animals That Crossed
2007 – Current
It's The Thought
That Counts
2007
Taking a Block for a
Walk Around the Block
2007
Kilroy Receding
My Hairline
2007
Dying on the Shitter Is
the New Black
2007
Jeff Koons Meets
Brad Downey
2006
Negative Space Saves
the Day
2006
Middle East, Future Site
for Public Sculpture
2006
Street Eats, Von
Brooklyn Nach Berlin
2005
Unsere Arbeit Macht
Uns Frei
2005
The Harder They Come,
the Harder They Fall
2005
Just Another Brick
in the Wall
2005
Dont Worry About That
Shit Babe
2005
Endless Column
in Context
2005
American Paranoia,
New Sub-Vehicle
Technology
2004
Darius and Downey
in Actual Size Typo
2003
A Lady Dreams
of Meeting a Pole
2003
Holler Back &
I Hear You Bro
2003
Honk-If You Love Graffiti
2003
Mars Formation, Future
Site for Public Art
2003
This Is Where Royal
Vandalism Happened
2003
Self Portrait at Nineteen
1999
Japanther JAPANTHER JAPanther.
In 2002 they were kind enough to give Brad most of the music for his street art documentary “Public Discourse.”
This is a really great newish track.
for further reading check. www.japanther.com
http://www.arte.tv/de/arte-magazin/Aktuelles-Heft/MAeRZ-2010/3073004.html
If you speak german.. ARTE MAGAZIN has a well written article about street art. I think the whole thing is online.
And keep your eyes peeled for the new ARTE street art documentary called”The Ephemeral Rebellion.” With a very nice work from berlin original “ZASD.”
Military scientists are currently working on a new type of robot technology – insect cyborgs, affectionately known as ‘cybugs’! The vision is to adapt actual insects to become surveillance platforms, equipped with cameras and able to access combat areas impenetrable to humans. Generally speaking, the main difficulty experienced so far in the creation of hugely scaled-down variants of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) like the Reaper and Predator drones currently tasked with surveillance missions over conflict zones like Afghanistan has been that of developing a power mechanism for them that combines low weight with high performance.
However, insects already have the ability to fly and, for this very reason, the scientists are now looking to them. Rather than create insect-shaped military robot technology, though, they are seeking to blend robotic elements into the insects and create natural/artificial insect robot hybrids.
Initially, the plan was to fuse machinery onto the insects, but this measure was found to be unreliable. Now, through the Hi-Mems (Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) programme, research is underway into installing microchip technology into undeveloped insects, with the aim that their muscles and nerves will essentially “mix in” with the electronic elements, and that the resulting creatures can be manipulated remotely. While this could be a costly exercise, it is anticipated that constructing entirely artificial technology from the outset could be more expensive.
Natural metamorphosis from one type of insect to another (e.g. caterpillar-to-butterfly) would strengthen the internal elements, according to the theory behind the plan.
Hi-Mems has been taking place within the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the past three years and, so far, $12 million in funding has been injected into it. A number of stranded sub-projects have evolved out of it, focusing on Horned Beetles, Moths and Roaches at several different institutions including MIT.
To date, researchers have successfully managed to control the motion of moths, although not yet in the air.
Ultimately – once the scientists have gained 100 per cent control over these insects – it is envisaged that they could serve on the front line as surveillance robots – their cameras, sensor equipment and other gadgets aiding in detecting enemy forces or IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), for example. Insects do not traditionally have much of a life-span, but even this has been thought of – devices that help sustain them could be attached externally.
Furthermore, it is hoped that, rather than with batteries, the insects will basically power themselves using their own associated mechanical energy and turning it into electrical impulses.
Opening: January 15th 2010 5pm – 8pm. Performance by Mathias Kryger at 6pm
Exhibition period: January 16th – June 6th, 2010
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, Staendertorvet 3A, 4000 Roskildewww.samtidskunst.dk
Guided tours: during the exhibition period there will be guided tours every Sunday at 2 pm (in Danish). The tour is free, when admission is paid.
Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 11am – 5pm, Saturday – Sunday 12am – 4pm
Artists from the museum collection:
Værst (DK), Yoko Ono (JP/US), Christian Marclay (US), John Cage (US), Allan Kaprow (US), Eric Andersen (DK), Akio Suzuki (JP), Philip Corner (US) & Ann Nöel (UK) and Thomas C. Uebelherr (US).
Other artists at the exhibtion:
Nina Beier & Marie Lund (DK), Yvette Brackmann (US), Kerstin Cmelka (AT), Henning Christiansen (DK) & Joseph Beuys (D), Lilibeth Cuenca (DK), Brad Downey (US), Goodipal (DK), Gudrun Hasle (DK), High Heel Sisters (DK/N/S), Judith Hopf (D), Illutron (DK), Frans Jacobi (DK), Kirsten Justesen (DK), Steffen Jørgensen & Allan Nicolaisen & Robert Kjær Clausen & Ditte Soria (DK), Peter Land (DK), Ann Lislegaard (DK), Paul McCarthy (US), Al Masson (F/DK), NSOM (DK), Olof Olsson (DK), Egill Sæbjørnsson (IS) & Marcia Moraes (BR), Morten Søndergaard & Jonas Breum Jensen (DK), VinylTerror & -Horror (DK) and Dr. Nexus (Bln), Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf (D) among others.
Artists:
Beto Shibata (Sao Paolo / Brasil)
Alexander Egger (Vienna / Austria)
Hannes Bend & Anne Deppe (Berlin / Germany)
Natasza Niedziolka (Miedzychod / Poland)
Mirja Harders (Hamburg / Germany)
Arik Mergi (Tel Aviv / Israel)
Encastrable (Strasbourg / France)
Falko Ohlmer (Hamburg / Germany)
Matt Mignanelli (New York / USA)
Brad Downey (Louisville / USA)
Gängeviertel Artists (Hamburg / Germany)
DIN A3, full coloured, 48 pages
http://www.magazingudberg.de/gudberg08.html
!!!!!!!!!!!MANCHESTER CALLING!!!!!!!!!!
Brad Downey will make two events for the Noiselab
Workshop- Tuesday, January 19, 2010 from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (GMT)
http://braddowneyresidency.eventbrite.com/
Public Discourse Screening- Friday, January 22, 2010 at 6:30 PM - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 8:00 PM (GMT)
http://publicdiscoursefilmscreening.eventbrite.com/
If you live in or near Lyon, France, Go and watch one of of Brad’s films January 25th, at 20h30.
The full Program available here.
they are also showing films by Jerome Fino and “The Wa.”
If you live in Denmark go check Macro-Live#2 on 21/01/2010 because its really cool
Live version of the project “Eye for ears”. This video project by Jérôme Fino juxtaposes different experimental musicians. Each artist was asked to improvise sound work. The short videos are documentations of these processes. Using close-up, the sequences zoom on instrument’s details and musician’s gesture. The camera is used like a
machine to decorticate the sound. “Eye for ears” proposes a music notice. It?s almost a physical experience, the sources of sounds and the relation between movement, materials and oscillation become evident.
http://samtidskunst.dk/en/view/objekt/?tabel=arrangementer&id=219
For the “MACRO-LIVE#02″ , the French turntablist Arnaud Rivière is invited for a session.
“Darius and Downey” are chosen as one of the 60 innovators shaping our creative future. Its a nice big book with some great stuff in art, design, fashion and other creative fields, published to mark Thames & Hudson’s 60th anniversary.
If you live in Copenhagen come and check it. Jerome Fino, Brad Downey, and “THE WA.”
PIXEL
H.C. Ørstedsvej 66, 1879 Frederiksberg
Jérôme Fino, The Wa og Brad Downey: Video battle # 01
Søndag 10. januar kl. 15-17
www.fastvideo.dk/pixel
With Brad Downey, The Wa, Louise, and Fahrlaessig.
Backjumps Volume 4 reviewed by Hili Perlson on www.ARTSLANT.com
With its dominant street charm and DIY flair, it seems fitting thatBerlin is the birthplace for a project like Backjumps – a magazine for “Urban Communication and Aesthetic” cum art event. The magazine was introduced in 1994 and is now available in museum book-stores (Palais de Tokyo, Tate Modern etc.) without having lost any of its street cred. To promote and celebrate the magazine’s growing popularity, Editor Adrian Nabi inaugurated Backjump’s Live Issuein 2005 – a biennial series of street art exhibitions held in Berlin?s legendary squat, the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Kreuzberg. Always a lively affair, the opening nights of Backjumps’ Live Issue soon became known as must-go event for many Berliners.
However, with a myriad of works by various artists, the Live Issue wasn’t always a comprehensively curated show. This year, Vol. 4 was presented in a much smaller and more concentrated format. It’s not clear if this is a result of curatorial decisions or a lack of funding in light of the financial crisis – either way: the reduced amount of art and artists being shown strongly contributed to the show’s overall unity. Vol. 4 features four aesthetic positions by seven artists living in Berlin (some working as a duo or a group), with a focus on their interactions with the city.
The first room featured a video by American ex-pat and Backjumps veteran Brad Downey. Shot in broad daylight on a busy road that connects the trendy neighborhoods of Prenzlauerberg and Friedrichshain, the video shows the creation of one of the artist’s “Spontaneous Sculptures” – a clever combination of disobedient behavior and action performance. The video features Downey attaching the ends of industrial rolls of adhesive tape in blue, red and white to a rotating, column-shaped billboard bearing an ad for a popular Swedish clothing manufacturer. The rolls of tape are then fixed upon street objects such as lamps and garbage cans. As the billboard rotates, it gradually becomes covered with tape, becoming the source of its own transformation. Downey can be seen running around the column trying to find more fixed objects to connect with tape. In the process, the cylindrical billboard begins to resemble a maypole with the energetic Downey a modern pagan celebrating urbanism instead of nature.
Another piece that transforms the idea of reclaiming urban space for art is the video “Zwischenzeit” (In Between) by the creative duo Wermke and Leinkauf of Stop Making Sense. In 2008, the two artists took a makeshift handcar made of metal and bike parts and embarked on a nocturnal journey on Berlin’s railway tracks. The result is a 17 minute video arrangement on 3 screens, featuring an eerie soundtrack made up of the monotonous, droning sound of the handcar rolling along the tracks at night. Trains can be seen cruising past the stations intermittently. Following their departure (after the station has quieted down and before the next train arrives) an obscure figure can be made out in the dark, slowly making his way along the tracks. Once in focus, we can see a calm but persistent person riding the handcar.
Similarly, artist Pigenius Cave built a tricycle to explore Berlin’s largely inaccessible underground for “The Immortal Youth of Pigenius Cave,” a collection of photographs and found objects taken out of city’s canalization system. Displayed in an amusing manner resembling a natural history museum, the objects and photographs allegedly reconstruct the childhood and youth of a street artist growing up in Berlin. RZM’s installation “Wandklopfen” also uses found objects and sounds recorded around Berlin to create a three dimensional collage of the city.
Without a doubt, the piece that drew most attention on opening night was Brad Downey’s “Don’t worry about that shit, René.” The work documents the controversy surrounding the artist’s spraying the front windows ofBerlin?s luxury department store, KaDeWe, with green paint in 2008. Downey used a fire extinguisher to achieve maximum results. While the scandalous piece took place on the streets of Berlin, it has less to do with the city itself than with the global phenomenon of the commercialization of art in general – and of street art in particular.
The story goes like this: To celebrate their 75th anniversary and spice up its image, Lacoste (with the help of the KaDeWe) commissioned 12 street artists to reinterpret the brand?s green crocodile emblem. The works were to be presented in the departments store’s windows for a few weeks before being auctioned. Downey, a reputedly “hard to buy” artist, finally agreed to participate, submitting the cryptic proposal/prophesy “Something outside will turn green.” Instead of designing a piece for the department store?s windows, Downey sprayed them with Lacoste-green. The piece presented at Backjumps documents everything from the news reports speculating about the identity of the “vandals”, to the damage-control email exchange between the artist’s agents and KaDeWe managers.
Downey’s action could be understood as a much needed critique of the state of street art: alienated from its illegal, nocturnal origins, graffiti today not only features prominently on ridiculously priced sneakers and T-shirts, but is also widely commissioned by major companies for “embedded” advertisements. However, I made the unfortunate mistake of reading what the artist himself had to say about his piece. In his text, Downey describes how he was contacted by NOWADAYS, the event agency that curated the Lacoste show and tried to convince him to participate. Admitting that he didn’t know what the KaDeWe was, Downey decided to “go and have a look.” The American ex-pat, unfamiliar with Berlin?s oldest, most traditional department store, expected to find a shopping mall. While looking for the Lacoste “store”, Downey recounts an unpleasant encounter he had with a KaDeWe employee whose English wasn’t good enough to understand what he wanted.
Claiming to be “disgusted” by his first experience with the KaDeWe, Downey resolved to take part in the show. It seems strange that instead of being disgusted with a “creative” commercial industry that pays people for generating bad art (in celebration of a clothing brand, for example), the artist directs his anger towards a simple KaDeWe employee who does what Berliners do best – be rude. But giving Downey the benefit of the doubt, the work itself is hilarious documentation of commissioned art gone wrong.
–Hili Perlson
the article here. http://www.artslant.com/global/articles/show/11355
Brad has contributed two drawings to the new colouring book by Dave the Chimp. It seems one has been rejected.
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Hi Brad, I had this email from the editor at my publisher: CHIMP
There was one artwork that we thought did cross the obscenity line in terms of the book being meant both for kids and adults. This was Brad Downey’s piece on page 25 which features in the foreground what appears to be a metal barricade either being buggered by another or possibly giving the other a blowjob. I personally found it brilliant, but all it would take is one parent pointing it out to bookshop staff or the distributor for the entire volume to be pulled off the shelves or out of bookshops entirely.
Daves response:
Technically, Brad hasn’t created anything obscene – he has just observed how barriers are joined together, and then reconfigured the positions of the barriers so that YOU give them a human or animal form and then picture them having sex! A barrier is an inanimate object with no sex organs. It can’t have sex. Therefore all we need to do is supply every shop with a text stating that, if anyone complains, the managers or staff point out that it is impossible for a street barrier to move by itself, let alone participate in the act of intercourse, and that anyone who even sees such a repugnant act in a book for children should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and their perverted imagination. I would also recommend the store manager bans any such person from the children’s section of their store. But obviously I don’t want to have the books banned from stores, so I’ll talk to Brad and see if we can find a solution. CHIMP
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If you live in Dublin. Come see some of the amazing speakers..
David Shrigley, Sir Peter Blake, Brad Downey, The Mill, The London Police. Asbestos,…… amongst others.
OFFSET website
opening party: 6th November
7th – 29th November 2009 – 12?19pm, in the “Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien” BERLIN
Artists: Brad Downey, Pigenius Cave, RZM (Ritsche Koch/Zasd/Christian Marien) und Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf.
