Juan Downey. The Knot of Life offers a visual and conceptual reflection on the early work of Chilean artist Juan Downey (1940–1993). The exhibition explores some of the pictorial and graphic work produced by the artist in the 1960s while living in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, and New York. The exhibition takes its title from one of the pieces on display, Le noeud de vie (1965), and aims to poeticize the complex function of the systems between humans and machines, offering glimpses of symbolic and psychoanalytic perceptions, the condition of unity and tension, of life and death, of humanity and monstrosity, of desire and fear.
Juan Downey. El nudo de la vida contiene tres ejes curatoriales definidos. El primero Transubstancias del cuerpo y la máquina está compuesto por una serie de nueve pinturas y grabados que abordan, las fronteras de la figuración y la abstracción, motivos relacionados con la vida, la muerte, el cuerpo, la máquina, la infinitud, la bestialidad, el erotismo, entre otros. En estas nociones se puede apreciar la complejidad visual, expansiva y radical de su mirada sobre el ser humano y su encuentro desafiante con la tecnología. El segundo eje Utopías tecnológicas: Energías, ondas y territorio invita a explorar las relaciones entre estos conceptos a partir del influjo posible que habilitaban algunas tecnologías disponibles en la época. A partir de cuatro piezas, se puede ver el impulso de Downey por establecer redes artísticas y tecnológicas en el continente americano a través de medios de punta como la interconectividad satelital. El tercer eje se denomina Diagramas y sistemas complejos y consta de tres dibujos realizados por Downey que investigan formas de pensamiento y modelos visuales en relación a la historia de la filosofía, del arte y el psicoanálisis, así como las relaciones del cuerpo y su funciones comunicacionales con la energía y la mecánica.
Juan Downey. The Knot of Life contains three defined curatorial axes. The first, Transubstantiations of the Body and the Machine, consists of a series of nine paintings and engravings that address the boundaries of figuration and abstraction, motifs related to life, death, the body, the machine, infinity, bestiality, and eroticism, among others. In these notions, one can appreciate the visual, expansive, and radical complexity of his view of the human being and his challenging encounter with technology. The second axis, Technological Utopias: Energies, Waves, and Territory, invites us to explore the relationships between these concepts based on the possible influence of some technologies available at the time. Through four pieces, we can see Downey’s drive to establish artistic and technological networks in the Americas through cutting-edge media such as satellite interconnectivity. The third theme is called Diagrams and Complex Systems and consists of three drawings by Downey that investigate ways of thinking and visual models in relation to the history of philosophy, art, and psychoanalysis, as well as the relationships between the body and its communicational functions with energy and mechanics.
Juan Downey. The Knot of Life is an invitation to explore a little-studied period in the work of one of the most important artists in Chilean history. Learning about his early work allows us to discover the power of his desires and thoughts, which tied him completely to the conceptual and visual territories he developed throughout his life.
