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4/10/2005

Juan Downey

Nohra Haime Gallery, New York

Drawings from Las Meninas and The Looking Glass

“In Las Meninas the viewer sees the averted painting engender its mirror image which in turn guarantees the king’s real presence as interdependent modes: the real, the depicted and the reflected: three modalities of the visible that cause and succeed one another in a perpetual present: reality, natural illusion and replication man made co-existing in ceaseless recirculation…”
- Leo Steinberg -

The twelve drawings by Juan Downey that comprise this exhibition relate to his videos: Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) (1975) and The Looking Glass (1981), studies by Downey of mirrors, reflections, reality and illusion. Taking Las Meninas and Venus with a Mirror by Velazquez, Downey decomposes and recomposes reality creating multi-layered and complex compositions.

Downey’s drawings from Las Meninas resemble story boards that can be seen from any angle and where the positive becomes negative and vice-versa. Most of these drawings are divided into eight scenes where we find the figure lying looking at herself in the mirror. Some of the images in these tableaux are upside down, reflections of the previous one, giving the works movement and recreating the illusionistic effects that the artist reaches in his videos and through his camera. The rhythm is also created by the simple lines and the use of color.

A leit motif in Downey’s drawings is his circular and semi-circular line which is pure energy. These lines add a new dimension to the works by recreating the non-tangible world. They appear in both Las Meninas and The Looking Glass.

In his series of drawing titled Leo’s Triangles, related to The Looking Glass Video, Downey investigates the mirror’s significance in Western European painting through Velazquez’ work. Triangles are superimposed on a drawing of Las Meninas to delve into the picture plane’s perspective, as discussed by art historian Leo Steinberg. These triangles explore the meaning of reflections, illusions and mirrors in Western art. They take us to the focal points of the picture and lead us out of it and into the viewer’s space, placing the viewer in the same space as the main characters of the scene. Downey’s line further emphasizes the various levels of reality: the seen, the unseen and the invisible.

Downey was awarded in 2001 at the 49th Venice Biennale an Honorable Mention, Excellence in Art, Science and Technology for his video About Cages Plateau of Humankind.

Downey was born in Santiago, Chile in 1940 and died in 1993. He received a B.A. in Architecture from the Catholic University of Chile, studied at S.W. Hayter's Atelier 17 in Paris and Pratt Institute in New York. Downey received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. He acted as associate professor in both the School of Architecture and the media department at Pratt Institute. His videotapes, drawings, performances and installations have been exhibited in solo shows at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Jewish Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; International Center of Photography, New York; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; and most recently at IVAM. Downey's work has also been included in group exhibitions at seven Whitney Biennials; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Venice Biennale representing both the United States and Chile ; and the World Wide Video Festival, The Hague among others. In 1998 IVAM Centre Julio Gonzalez, in Valencia, Spain hosted a major retrospective of Downey's extensive body of work. His work is in major museum collections worldwide.

Downey’s installation Anaconda: Map of Chile is on view until October 8th in Beyond
Geography: Forty Years of Visual Arts at the Americas Society, Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue.

A catalogue with text by Gabriela Rangel is being published in conjunction with the exhibition.

A screening of the two videos related to the exhibition will take place at the gallery on Tuesday October 25th: 6:30 p.m.: LAS MENINAS 7:30 p.m.: THE LOOKING GLASS - Limited space: R.S.V.P. at 212-888-3550.

OPENING: Wednesday October 5th, 2005 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Nohra Haime Gallery
41 East 57th street - New York
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For further information: Catherine Parker at 212-888-3550

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