Juan Downey. The Invisible Architect

A contemporary of Gordon Matta-Clark and Nam June Paik, Chilean-born Juan Downey (1940–1993) has--to date--remained an under-recognized pioneer of video art. A key protagonist in the New York art scene of the 1970s and 1980s, Downey combined autobiographical content with an anthropological documentary style. His later work emphasized visual metaphor, collage-like techniques and non-linear narrative to explore European mythology and the roots of Latin American identity. Containing interviews with Downey's family, friends and fellow artists such as Trisha Brown, Luis Camnitzer, Jon Hendricks, Alfredo Jaar, Les Levine, Antoni Muntadas and Bill Viola, this publication includes the first scholarly anthropological reading of Downey's seminal series Video Trans Americas by renowned author Michael Taussig. As his first comprehensive survey in the United States, Juan Downey: The Invisible Architect at last unveils the oeuvre of this remarkable artist to a wider public.