BRAD DOWNEY - I AM YOU, YOU ARE ME

April 13 – May 5, 2023
Bačva Gallery, Home of HDLU (Meštrović pavilion)

BRAD DOWNEY - I AM YOU, YOU ARE ME

The opening of the exhibition by BRAD DOWNEY, I AM YOU, YOU ARE ME will be on Thursday, April 13 at 7 pm, in Bačva Gallery, Home of HDLU (Meštrović pavilion).

In the exhibition I AM YOU, YOU ARE ME, Downey presents a work on ‘forced collaborations’ with other artists, manipulating their works to update and extend their discourse, synchronising them in the contemporary status of art. Downey’s work forces us to rethink the subject, space, time, and language, dissolving the subject in interaction, measuring space in potential actions rather than centimetres, disintegrating the timeline of art history, and manipulating language to test the understanding of art. His work challenges the determination of Arthur Danto that art is the history of art, and instead suggests that art is the understanding of art.

Downey’s art embodies Deleuze’s idea of the power of the virtual to transform the actual, subverting and transforming the everyday to create new possibilities for thought and action. He invites viewers to question the meaning and purpose of the spaces they occupy, and consider alternative ways of imagining and inhabiting those spaces. At the heart of Downey’s art is a desire to create a dialogue between the urban environment and its inhabitants, encouraging viewers to rethink their relationship to their surroundings and imagine alternative futures.

Forced-to-collaborate artists:

1. Dieter Roth
“He is the artist from whom I learned the most, discovering new dimensions”

2. Robert Smithson
“Feel the place, more place than artwork”

3. Banksy
“It’s a restored piece”

4. Luke Tuymans
“It’s a complicated work about broken plates and fractured identities”

5. Jože Plečnik
“Plečnik is Ljubljana’s architect his work is as transcendent as Brâncuși’s”

6. Alexander Brener
“He was jailed in 1997 for painting a green dollar sign on Kazimir Malevich’s painting Suprematisme”

7. Roman Signer
“It’s about slow cancellation”

8. Maxi
“He’s the sculptor who I commissioned to make the Melania monument”

ABOUT THE ARTIST
The Artist Brad Downey is an American artist based in Berlin whose art challenges conventional ideas of public space and urban environment, inviting viewers to rethink their relationship to their surroundings. He often repurposes everyday objects in unexpected and sometimes humorous ways, expressing the subversive potential of everyday life. Downey aims to create a dialogue between the urban environment and its inhabitants with emphasis on difference and multiplicity. His work opens up new possibilities for thought and action, inviting us to imagine alternative futures for ourselves and our world. Brad Downey’s art explores becoming more than being, and in this way restructures and challenges basic conventions such as identity and time.