Jill Downen: Three-Dimensional Sketchbook by Bruno David Gallery

J I L L D OW N E N THREE-DIMENSIONAL SKETCHBOOK

bruno david gallery

JILL DOWNEN

Three-Dimensional Sketchbook September 6 - October 26, 2013 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition JILL DOWNEN: THREE-DIMENSIONAL SKETCHBOOK Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Yuwei Qiu Design Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Jill Downen (pp. 36-39, Courtesy of Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis) Photographs by Richard Sprengeler and Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Stack (detail) 2013 Plaster, Paper 15-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (39.37 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm) First Edition Copyright ÂŠ 2013 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.

CONTENTS

HAND ON HAND: JILL DOWNEN’S THREE DIMENSIONAL SKETCHBOOK by Peter MacKeith AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

HAND TO HAND: JILL DOWNEN’S THREE DIMENSIONAL SKETCHBOOK by PETER MACKEITH 2

“Painters and poets are born phenomenologists,” asserted the Dutch psychiatrist J.H. van der Berg in his 1955 book, The Phenomenological Approach to Psychiatry, suggesting that the mental attitudes and frameworks of the artistic mind, as well as the means and methods of artistic expression, are essentially grounded in the lived experience of the world. And so too, we might propose by extension, are sculptors and architects also “born phenomenologists” – at least, this is the explicit suggestion of the artistic vision and creative work of Jill Downen. Indeed, Jill Downen’s body of work, conceived and executed with great vigor over the last decade, has sought to demonstrate that all of us, no matter our walk of life, possess this essential capacity. Her works, from the animated room-scaled exercising of walls, floors and ceilings to the articulated hand-scaled constructions, maquettes and fragments, appeal to our physical and mental apprehension of our bodies – and accentuate our bodily movement (elegant and awkward by turns) in the space of the world. Such self-awareness, such such-knowledge, such embodiment of the tangible, palpable qualities of sheer existence, can be reassuring, discomfiting, or exhilarating – but at any scale, the works clearly resonate with these ambitions and impressions. In the context of Downen’s Three-Dimensional Sketchbook, however, as presented in the Bruno David Gallery’s front room in the fall of 2013, an opportunity exists to consider the concept of “the sketch” – intellectually and artistically - in the construction of Downen’s body of work over the last decade, since her rapid emergence as an artist of depth and productivity. If here the sketch is understood as an early unformed conceptual exploration, as an initial setting out of terms and techniques, or as a brief suggestive essay or dramatic scene, the relevance of two early experiences in the artist’s development may be revealing – and in fact, these “sketches” may give dimension, volume and density to an understanding of Downen’s work. For these contemporary intellectual and artistic ambitions were fully evident already in Anxious Architecture, the artist’s spring 2001 MFA thesis work at Washington University in St. Louis, a room-sized condensed wooden re-construction of her childhood house in which viewers/visitors were compelled to encounter rooms of sloped floors, angled ceilings, over-scaled furniture, and distended apertures of doors and windows. These disorienting and compressed rooms contained further chambers, cabinets and closets, each with a distinctive echo, fragrance, or texture, and all was composed – as if set to a distant melancholy music – to elicit simultaneous poignancy and disquiet. The work presented as an enlarged shadowed dream-like memory-box, a Cornell construction for phenomenal (if temporary) inhabitation. In multiple ways, as a “fragment” of artistic DNA, Anxious Architecture prefigured Downen’s preoccupations with place, memory and sensory response, with the physicality of form and the manipulation of architectural elements, and with the materiality and density of experience.

The convergences of art and architecture, of resonant memory and immediate sensory appeal, of material construction and spatial sequence, that Anxious Architecture and its author both relied upon and demonstrated had been equally present as focal points for intellectual discussion in a fall 2000 seminar in Washington University’s School of Architecture, entitled simply, “Questions of Perception.” Led by visiting scholar Juhani Pallasmaa and myself, and open to graduate students in both art and architecture, the reading list for the seminar included Pallasmaa’s own The Eyes of the Skin, as well as Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture, Christian Norberg-Schulz’ Existence, Space and Architecture, and Steven Holl’s Questions of Perception, among others. But these readings (so clearly emerging from a phenomenological sensibility in architecture) and the seminar discussions they engendered, centered around the French scientist-philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, an ur-text of such thought for many in architecture educated in the 1980s and 1990s as waves of superficial historicism and formalism swept over architectural culture. Bachelard’s texts, along with those of the other authors, suggested that architecture could achieve a poetic quality, and the idea that such quality might in fact emerge from an active employment of empirically understood experiences of the world possessed immense appeal to the young artists and architects of the seminar. That such a course would appeal to those in the University’s MFA program as much as in the M.Arch program came as a welcome surprise, as was the swift realization that the students were pursuing the trajectory of these intellectual forces with such passion. Moreover, the common ground that the course themes outlined for both artists and architects provided fertile territory subsequently for both collaborative investigations and individual productivity. Such can be the power of an intellectual “sketch” in an education. In the present moment, more than a decade later, the elements presented in Downen’s Three-Dimensional Sketchbook have both aspects of a sketch: as an early conceptual exploration of forms and as an initial, condensed setting out of terms and techniques. The sequence of individual wall-mounted shelves lining the small gallery displays a spectrum of formal propositions, within the material family of plaster and concrete, across a range of technical means of execution – and what seems at first a disparate set of fragments, all from different hands, can be understood ultimately as the manual meditations of the same pair of restless, active hands. On one wall the aligned studies of Stack, a multitude of dipped and dried planar layers, unable to withstand their own weight; Artifact (from a Dream), a smoothly cast and released cornered volume, against the odds possessing a center of gravity and balance; Nerve, a ganglia of petrified linear energies; and Un-nameable, a brain-sized mass of abstract matter, paralyzed in mid-pulsation, on the verge of losing any formal coherence. On the other wall, the aligned exhibits of Artifact (from Beauty Mark), a collection of

golden flakes, both piled and gridded, suggestive of the infinite points that constitute a line, a plane, and volumetric surface; Artifact (from the Posture of Place), a cracked concrete shard, dispossessed of context and balance; and Tendon (from the Posture of Place, maquette), a nearly recognizable sculptural proposition, measured and smoothed with evident intent. Downen’s work intends to evoke both immediacy of sensation and more considered assessments of our own physical activities. These wall-mounted, eye-level sequences swiftly suggest multiple processes of making, recognitions arriving first intuitively but then understood cognitively in gerund formations: layering, stacking, dipping, drying, balancing, shifting, casting, molding, releasing, piling, gridding, cracking, measuring, smoothing, sanding (In these evocations, the relentless pursuit of these “making” processes by Richard Serra in an earlier era may serve as an intellectual and historical backdrop). For the artist, these “sketches” may well be simultaneously a personal tactile dictionary, an intense, condensed catalog of process, form and technique, as well as a record of her own time, labor and energy. The centerpiece of Three-Dimensional Sketchbook is most properly understood as the magnetically antiseptic white-enameled metal cabinet of drawers, centered on the far wall of the gallery, mysterious in its isolation and banality, yet comfortingly measurable in its dimensions and quantities: three stacks of eight, two groups of nine in two different depths and one group of six of a third and thinnest depth, twenty-four drawers in all, set atop a simple, unadorned four-legged platform, all rising to an accessible height of an average person’s waist. To all appearances, when closed and silent, this mute metal cabinet is an example of generic office furniture, or perhaps more interestingly, an equipment cabinet on loan from a scientific research laboratory, or more ominously, a dispensary for a dentist’s stainless steel utensils, or more evocatively, an altar of an austere and demanding faith. Only the nickel-plated drawer pulls and individual label surrounds offer an immediate humanity to the composition, providing the minimum of access and identity – and even there, the enigmatic labels (breath, light, room, joined, deconstruction, embodiment, among others) both provoke and puzzle our imaginations. But the cabinet and its drawers are anything but mute; when pulled open, certain drawers reveal a concentration of material, textures and color: tissues of gold leaf, chips of cast white plaster, milled lengths of dimensioned wood, iridescent blue powder, for instance. Certain other drawers contain miniature assemblies of scaled construction – cunningly crafted wooden trusses, scaffolds, pallets, and pedestals – or dense presentations of cast or molded plaster in situ, in fragments, in singular formation, or in multiple units. When fully opened, Downen’s cabinet, her “sketchbook,” pulses with multiple energies. The clinical restraint of the ordered white enclosure only masks a diverse variety of artistic possibilities, a kaleidoscopic material palette of expressive opportunities.

The twenty-four cabinet drawers also stimulate another possibility: that there are others, many others…a vision of a vast room of such cabinets hovers at the edge of the imagination. That Downen’s Three Dimensional Sketchbook is highly personal – it is hers, from her hands - makes it no less generous – it is also potentially ours, potentially for our hands. Such can be the gift of a sketchbook, whether one of half-filled or entirely blank pages, or drawers, or of overflowing or empty shelves. Each page, each shelf, each drawer opens into a world, Downen’s sketchbook suggests, and each world is a territory to be experienced and inhabited, in all of its physical, material, sensual depth. Such can the gift of a sketchbook, such can be the gift of art.

Peter MacKeith is a Professor of Architecture and Adjunct Associate Curator for Architecture and Design at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis. He directed the international Masters Program in architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology from 1994-1999 and previously taught design and architectural theory at Yale University and the University of Virginia. In 1998, he was Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. MacKeith has worked in practices in both the United States and Finland and has written and lectured extensively in the United States, Finland, and across the Nordic countries on the work of Alvar Aalto, and on contemporary Finnish and Nordic architecture in general. A past editor of Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1988), he is also the author and/or editor of The Finland Pavilions: Finland at the Universal Expositions 1900-1992 (Helsinki: City Publishers, 1992), Encounters: Architectural Essays, a selection of essays by Juhani Pallasmaa (Helsinki: Rakennustieto, Building Information, Ltd., 2005), The Dissolving Corporation: Contemporary Architecture and Corporate Identity in Finland (Helsinki: The Finnish Institute for Business and Policy Studies (EVA), 2005), and Archipelago, Essays of Architecture (Helsinki: Rakennustieto, Building Information, Ltd., 2006), among others. His analytical drawings of Aalto’s buildings were included in the 1998 MoMA Aalto retrospective and was coordinating curator for the 2009 exhibition Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future at the Kemper Art Museum, Washington University. MacKeith is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and research grants from The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. In 2008, he received a Creative Achievement in Design Education Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). He is currently the Editor of The SOM Journal, a journal of architecture history, theory, criticism and professional practice. This essay is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David I am pleased to present a new exhibition titled “Three-Dimensional Sketchbook” by Jill Downen at the Bruno David Gallery. Jill Downen’s new work offers a look into the intimate processes she employs in the studio to develop ideas and plan large scale installations. The art invites viewers to survey Downen’s work from a new and unexpected perspective. The project features a cabinet of drawers displaying models crafted from plaster, basswood, paper and gold leaf. The small scale of these sculptures explores a reversal of the experience that viewers generally have with Downen’s monumental installations. The inverted scale and assembly of the maquettes as miniature installations, each in its own drawer, result in a reconsideration of the forms in relationship to each other, the body and to Downen’s art making practice overall. Downen’s art is a focused investigation of the symbiotic relationship between the human body and architecture expressed in temporal installations, drawings, and models. Her art envisions a place of interdependent relation between the human body and architecture, where the exchanging forces and tensions of construction, deterioration, and restoration emerge as thematic possibilities. During the time of this exhibition, Downen was part of a group exhibition titled Place is the Space curated by Dominic Molon and Brad Cloepfil at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM). We have included several photos of this exhibition within this catalogue. Downen received significant awards such as the 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship, MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts residency, and Cité International des Arts Residency in Paris. Downen was selected for the 2004 Great Rivers Biennial at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. She has been invited to lecture about her work extensively, including the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Luce Irigaray Circle Philosophy Conference in New York. Her art has been reviewed in publications including Art in America, Sculpture, Art Papers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York Times. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA as a Danforth Scholar from Washington University in St. Louis. Jill Downen is currently an assistant professor of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Peter MacKeith for his thoughtful essay. I am deeply grateful to Yuwei Qiu, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Cleo Azariadis, Lona Moody, Sophie Lipman, Yoko Kiyoi, Yuwei Qiu and Alex Lasko. 9

CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

Stack, 2013 Plaster, Paper 15-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (39.37 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

Artifact (from a Dream), 2013 concrete 14 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (35.56 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

Nerve, 2013 Plaster, paper 16 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (40.64 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

Un-nameable, 2008 Concrete, plaster, latex 12-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (31.75 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

Artifact (from Beauty Mark test piece), 2013 Concrete, gold 9-1/4 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (23.50 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

Artifact (from The Posture of Place), 2004 Concrete 15-1/4 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (38.74 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

Tendon (from The Posture of Place maquette), 2004 Eps, gypsum, latex 19-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 8 inches (49.53 x 21.59 x 20.32 cm)

JILL DOWNEN: Three-Dimensional Sketchbook. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 19

JILL DOWNEN: Three-Dimensional Sketchbook. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 20

JILL DOWNEN: Three-Dimensional Sketchbook. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 21

JILL DOWNEN: Three-Dimensional Sketchbook. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 22

JILL DOWNEN: Three-Dimensional Sketchbook. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 23

Three-Dimensional Sketchbook, 2013 Mixed media, cabinet 30-1/2 x 33-1/4 x 16 inches (77.47 x 84.46 x 40.64 cm)

Beauty Mark, 2013 Gold leaf, gypsum, polystyrene, latex, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Place is the Spaceâ&#x20AC;?, Installation View Curated by Dominic Molon and Brad Cloepfil Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis September 6-December 29, 2013

JILL DOWNEN Lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri EDUCATION 2001 1989

M.F.A., Sculpture Washington University, St. Louis, MO B.F.A., Painting / Printmaking Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO

GRANTS / AWARDS / RESIDENCIES 2013 2010 2009

Studios Inc Residency, Kansas City, MO John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, New York, NY MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Peterborough, NH Leon Levy Foundation Grant for MacDowell Colonists John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation travel grant for MacDowell Colony Ragdale Foundation residency, Lake Forest, IL Vermont Studio Center residency and artist’s grant, Johnson, VT 2007 Cité Internationale des Arts, residency, Paris, France 2006-02 Emerson Visiting Critics/Curators Series, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (visits with Franklin Sirmans, Ingrid Schaffner, Shamim Momin, Thom Collins, James Elaine, Douglas Fogle, Sylvia Chivaratanond, Hamza Walker) 2004 Great Rivers Biennial Grant, Gateway Foundation & Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Selected by curators Lisa Corrin, Debra Singer, and Hamza Walker 2004 Grand Center Visionary Awards (Emerging Artist), St. Louis, MO 1999 Danforth Scholar Fellowship for Graduate Study, Washington University in St. Louis 1988 Thomas Hart Benton Scholarship, Kansas City Art Institute SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2013

Three Dimensional Sketchbook, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue)

2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1995 1989

3x3: Restoration, Herron Galleries, Indianapolis, IN Three Dimensional Sketchbook, Plug Projects, Kansas City, MO Dust and Distance, University of North Texus, Denton, TX catalogue with DVD Mid-Section, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Jill Downen, Counterparts, New Frontiers Series for Contemporary Art, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK (catalogue) (dis)Mantle, The Luminary, St. Louis, MO Hard Hat Optional, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Drawing in Dialogue with Luce Irigaray, Rosenberg Gallery Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY (in conjunction with the 3rd Annual Luce Irigaray Circle Conference) Corps et Bâtiment á Paris, Cité Internationale des Arts galleries, Paris, France In & Out of Space, 2-person with Dean Kessmann, Murray State University, KY Overflow, 1708 Gallery, 2-person with Charles Gick, curated by Elizabeth Keller, Richmond, VA catalogue (dis)embody, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Uneasy Opposition, Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL (catalogue) Posture of Place, Great Rivers Biennial, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Body/Building: Involuntary Anatomies, Ninth Street Gallery, St. Louis, MO Rubber Wall, A. R. C. Gallery, Frontspace Installation, Chicago, IL Anxious Architecture, Purdue University Beelke Gallery, Lafayette, IN MFA Thesis Exhibit, In-Form Gallery, Lemp Brewery, St. Louis, MO The 116 N. 40th Series, North Gallery, St. Louis, MO Visions of the Numinous, Community Gallery, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Church Library, Kansas City, MO Rites of Passage, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 2013 2011 2010 2009 2008

Sightlines: Ann Pibal, Jill Downen, Frank Trankina, & Dean Smith, American University Museum, Washington, DC Studios Inc, resident group exhibition, Kansas City, MO Place is the Space, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) New Four, KCAI Faculty Exhibition, H&R Blockspace, Kansas City, MO Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Jim Schmidt Presents Abstraction, Philip Stein Gallery, St. Louis, MO Prints + Multiples, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Art in Architecture, juniors Michael Graves, James Christen Steward, Sassona Norton Sassona Norton, The Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, NJ Over Paper, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Monochrome, Manifest Creative Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH Hybrida, works on paper, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO

2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1995

Cornerstone, New Media Project Room, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Paper Now, I-Space, guest curator Chris Kahler, Chicago, IL ArtsDesire, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO catalogue Perspectives, Brooks Museum of Art, curated by Michael Rooks, Memphis, TN Flat Files, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, curated by Katie Holten, St. Louis, MO In & Out of Space, 2-person show with Dean Kessmann, Murray State University, KY Overflow, (with Charles Gick),1708 Gallery, curated by Elizabeth Keller, Richmond, VA Symbiosis, Kirkland Fine Arts Center, Millikin University, Decatur, IL Inaugural Exhibition, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Projects â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;04, Islip Art Museum Long Island Carriage House, East Islip, NY Washington University School of Art Faculty Exhibit, Kemper Museum, St. Louis, MO 20th Anniversary Exhibit, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Danforth Scholars Exhibit, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO 1984-2004 Twentieth Anniversary Celebration, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, September 17-October 16, St. Louis, MO Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Art..., Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, July 9-September 4, St. Louis, MO Women Only, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, April 16 - May 22, St. Louis, MO Binational Art Exhibit, U.S. Embassy, curator Maria Velasco, Asuncion, Paraguay catalogue Corners, Museum of Contemporary Art, curator Erica France, Ft. Collins, CO catalogue Wear Structure, Open-End Gallery & Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL 29th Bradley National Print & Drawing Exhibition, Bradley University, Peoria, IL Paper in Particular National Exhibition, Columbia College, Columbia, MO Three Women Artists, Meramec Art Gallery, invitational, St. Louis, MO 3 x 3, Meramec Art Gallery, faculty show, St. Louis, MO Heuristic Origins, Second Floor Contemporary, curated by David Hall, Memphis, TN Exposure 4: The Spaces In-Between, Park Avenue Gallery, curated by Terry Suhre, St. Louis, MO Group Show, Winifsky Gallery, Salem State College, Salem, MA 4th Annual Invitational, North Gallery, St. Louis, MO Shack Town, Des Lee Gallery, curated by Michael Williams, St. Louis, MO 4th Annual Critical Mass One Night Stand, Crowe T. Brooks Gallery, St. Louis, MO Super-imposed, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO 6th Annual Regional Exhibit, St. Charles Community College, St. Peters, MO Structually Speaking, Art St. Louis, curated by Adrian Luchini, St. Louis, MO 2nd Annual Invitational, North Gallery, Ferguson, MO Contemporary Women Artist XI, Meramec Art Gallery, St. Louis, MO 5th Annual Regional Exhibition, St. Charles County Community College, St. Peters, MO Golden Mean, Art St. Louis, St. Louis, MO Artists and Their Teachers, Hendren Gallery, Lindenwood University, St. Louis, MO

1994 1993 1992 1989

Art St. Louis X, The Exhibition, Art St. Louis, St. Louis, MO Group Exhibition, Animalia Gallery, Saugatuck, MI 7th Annual Ecclesiastical Art Exhibit, Historic Trinity, Detroit, MI Two-Person Exhibition, St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, St. Louis, MO Group Show, Watson Ess Gallery, Kansas City, MO Two-Person Show, Jackson County State Bank, Kansas City, MO 13th Annual KCRCHE Art Exhibition, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, MO

COLLECTIONS Oklahoma City Museum of Art Sprint Corporation Southwest Illinois College Emerson Electric

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Mackeith, Peter Fowler, Nancy Griesbach, Sarah Hermes ---------------Molon, Dominic Miller, Bryan Sarah Reilly, Christopher Lacy, Jamilee Polson Schulman, Blair Deleon, Jessica Ng, Emily Breeding, Lucinda Kinney, Mike Klos, Jennifer Caplinger, Hesse Ezell, Ruth

“Hand to Hand: Jill Downen’s Three Dimensional Sketchbook”, Bruno David Gallery Publication (catalogue), February 2014 “Relationship between art and design is focus of CAM’s 10th Anniversary”, St. Louis Beacon, September 05, 2013 “Artists plumb their unconscious for Bruno David”, St. Louis Beacon, September 23, 2013 “Brad Cloepfil’s St. Louis...”, Architectural Record Daily Headlines, August 31, 2013 “Place is the Space”, Catalogue, Nov, 2013 “CAM marks anniversary...”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, September 01, 2013 “Decade of Dicovery”, Alive magazine, p26, September, 2013 “Bad at Sports Blog”, Kansas City MO, Feburary 06, 2013 “Artspeak”, live conversation, KKFI Radio Kansas City, January 17, 2013 “Dust & Distance invites viewers…”, The North Texan, Denton, TX, March 26, 2012 “Might Be Good, Dust & Distance”, Fluent-Collaborative, Austin, TX, #185, March 09, 2012 “Deeper than Skin”, Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton, TX, March 03, 2012 “Through the Lense”, CBS News 11, Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX Feburary 22, 2012 “Jill Downen: Counterparts”, Oklahoma City Museum Connect, Vol. 2011-1, 2011 “Parts and Counterparts”, St. Louis Magazine, March 2011 “Living St. Louis”, KETC (PBS, ch. 9), January 10, 2011

Beall, Dickson Cooper, Ivy Cooper, Ivy Bonetti, David Ferber, Andrea L. Baran, Jessica Caplinger, Hesse Beal, Dickson Russel Stefene Artner, Alan. Hughes, Jeffrey Beall, Hugh. Humphries, Kim Sieloff, Alison and Friswold, Paul Fitzgerald, Shannon. Wagner, Ashley. Miller, Rob. Cooper, Ivy. Bonetti, David. Crone, Tomas. Beall, Hugh. Miller, Rob. Beall, Hugh. Bonetti, David. Sieloff, Alison. Bonetti, David. Murphy, Anne. Castro, Jan Garden. Bonetti, David.

“Body Buildings”, Documentary Film, 2010 “Jill Downen at the Luminary”, Art in America, December, 2010 “Downen Takes a Fresh Direction”, St. Louis Beacon, May 4, 2009 “Jill Downen at Bruno David”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 3, 2009 “Jill Downen”, Essay, Catalogue, Bruno David Gallery Publications “Jill Downen: Hard Hat Optional”, RiverFront Times, April 30, 2009 “Don’t Think of a Construction Site”, Examiner.com, April 25, 2009 “Construction Zone” West End Word”, April 15, 2009 “Jill Downen: Hard Hat Optional”, St. Louis magazine, April 10, 2009 “Paper Now”, Chicago Tribune, September 21, 2007 “Jill Downen”, Art Papers, July-August 2006 “Jill Downen at Bruno David Gallery”, Illusion Junkie, April, 2006. Web Video. http://ia310117.us.archive.org/1/items/Jill_Downen_at_Bruno_David/downendavid.mov “Jill Downen: (dis)embody.” Bruno David Gallery’ Series of Introductions, April 2006 “April is for Art Lovers.” Riverfront Times, April 6-12, 2006 “Uneasy Opposition.” Catalogue Essay. January, 2006. “Uneasy Opposition.” The Daily Eastern News, Charleston, IL. January 19, 2006. “’Over hung’ show or ‘Hung over’ critic?” Saintlouisart, November 17, 2005. http://saintlouisart.blogspot.com/ “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Riverfront Times, November 9, 2005. “Bruno David Gallery”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 9, 2005 “Bruno David Gallery”, 52nd City, October 2005. http://blog.52ndcity.com/archives “The Bruno buzz”, West End Word, October 26, 2005. “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Saintlouisart, October 25, 2005. http://saintlouisart.blogspot.com/ “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Illusion Junkie, October 25, 2005. Web Video. http://illusionjunkie.blogspot.com/2005/10/bruno-david-inaugural-exhibition.html “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 2005 “Grand Grand Center”, Riverfront Times, October 19, 2005 “Gallery musical chairs”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2005 “Art News”, The Healthy Planet, September 2005. http://www.thehealthyplanet.com/sept05_artfulliving.htm “Three Rivers Biennial,” Sculpture Magazine, New York, January 2005. p. 71 “Art in 2004,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 2, 2005 “Artist Celebrate Elliot Smith With Works Incorporating 20,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 3, 2004. p. F6. St. Louis, MO.

Cooper, Ivy. Harrison, Helen A. Hughes, Jeffrey. Bonetti, David. Zapf, Rudy Cooper, Ivy Woodcok, Tim Bonetti, David Cooper, Ivy Bonetti, David

“1984-2004 Twentieth Anniversary Celebration At Elliot Smith”, Riverfront Times, September 29-October 5, 2004, p. 178. St. Louis, MO. “Projects ’04,” The New York Times, September 26, 2004 “Jill Downen and the Posture of Place.” Art Works. Washington University in St. Louis. Fall 2004, vol. 9. “Installation Art is contemporary” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 1, 2004 “Your Are Here, Great Rivers Biennial,” Playback: St. Louis Pop Culture, August 2004 “2004 Great Rivers Biennial Exhibition,” Riverfront Times, July 28, 2004 “Off the Wall,” West End Word, cover story, July 21, 2004 “Cityscape,” Converstion with Michael Sampson, NPR 90.7 KWMU, July 16, 2004 “Great Rivers Exhibit gets contemporary in the Flow,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 11, 2004 “Surviving St. Louis,” Art Papers, May/June 2004 “Legends of the Fall - Critic’ Picks,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 2, 2004. p. 2 (Get Out). St. Louis, MO Callahan, Theresa “Downtown Gallery Showcases Five Emerging Artists’ Work,” West End Word, January 21, 2004 Martelli, Rose. “Smith Elliot: The Gallery Looks In The Mirror For Its 20th.”, Riverfront Times, September 15-21, 2004, p. 32. St. Louis, MO. Bonetti, David. “Everything Show”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 18, 2004. p. F8. St. Louis, MO. Cooper, Ivy. “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Art...”, Riverfront Times, July 28-August 3, 2004, p. 42. St. Louis, MO. Bonetti, David. “Women Only”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 9, 2004. p. F4. St. Louis, MO. Cooper, Ivy. “Women Only”, Riverfront Times, April 28-May 4, 2004. p. _.St. Louis, MO. Bonetti, David. “Gallery Hopping in the CWE”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 2004. St. Louis, MO. Callahan, Teresa. “The Danforth Scholars Show.” West End Word, January 21,2004. St. Louis, MO Bonetti, David. “3 Sculptural-installation Artists are Great Rivers Biennial winners.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 30, 2003. St. Louis, MO. Bonetti, David. “Body/Building.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 9, 2003. St. Louis, MO Callahan, Theresa. “Body Art: Jill Downen’s Installations are Intelligent...” West End Word, November 12, 2003. St. Louis, MO Smith, Brian. “3 Artists at Meramec show far-apart styles”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 1,2002. __________. “Danforth Scholars Reach Across Generations”, Washington University Magazine, Fall 2001. St. Louis, MO Sarah Szczepanski. “Anxious Architecture”, Purdue Exponent . August 27, 2001. St. Louis, MO Brouk, Tim. “Anxious Architecture,” Lafayette Journal and Courier, August 19, 2001. St. Louis, MO Zeller-Michaelson.A. “MFA Thesis exhibit”, West End Word, May 10, 2001. St. Louis, MO Smith, Brian. “Super-imposed” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 9 2000. St. Louis, MO __________. Missouri Arts Council, Guide to Programs & Annual Report, 2000-2001.

WRITING BY ARTIST “Carmon Colangelo,” Catalogue Essay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Fall 2006 “Transpolyblu”. West End Word, review at Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, February 22, 2001. St. Louis, MO VISITING ARTIST LECTURES / SYMPOSIUMS 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

American University, Visting Artist, Washington D.C. H&R Blockspace, Inspiration, panelist, Kansas City, MO Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, gold leaf workshop, St. Louis, MO The Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, public lecture, Mt. Vernon, IL Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Artist Roundtable: Place is the Space, St. Louis, MO la Esquina, “Making with Architecture“, panel discussion, Kansas City, MO Plug Projects, gallery talk “Three Dimensional Sketchbook“, Kansas City, MO Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO Southern Illinois University, lecture and critiques, Edwardsville, IL Bowling Green State University Architecture Lecture Series, Bowling Green, OH Dallas Museum of Art, Center for Creative Connections workshop, Dallas, TX University of North Texas, lecture/graduate critiques, Denton, TX The Phillips Collection, Conversations with Artists Series, Washington D.C. George Washington University, graduate critiques, Washington D.C. American University, graduate critiques, Washington D.C. Webster University, lecture, St. Louis, MO The Pulizer Foundation for the Arts, Frames of Repference, St. Louis, MO University of North Texas, Denton, TX University of Oklahoma, lecture and critiques, Norman, OK St. Louis Art Museum, An Artist’s Favorites, gallery talk, St. Louis, MO St. Louis Art Museum, The Sculptural Object in Culture, gallery talk, St. Louis, MO Western Michigan University, lecture & workshop, Kalamazoo, MI American University, lecture, Washington D.C. University of Texas at Austin, lecture, Austin, TX University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lecture,Urbana-Champaign, IL Forest City Gallery, public lecture, London, Ontario, Canada University of Arizona, lecture, Tucson, AZ Drake University, Des Moines, IA University of Florida, Orlando, FL

2007 2006 2005 2004 2004 2001 2000 1999 1998 1994 1993 1992

Krannert Art Museum, public lecture, Urbana-Champaign, IL Virginia Commonwealth University, visiting artist, Richmond, VA Eastern Illinois University, lecture/critiques in conjunction with Uneasy Opposition, Charleston IL George Washington University, visiting artist, Washington D.C. Webster University, lecture on The Posture of Place, St. Louis, MO Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, panel discussion, St. Louis, MO Memphis College of Art, lecture & critiques, in conjunction with Heuristic Origins, Memphis, TN Purdue University, lecture & critiques in conjunction with Anxious Architecture, Lafayette, IN Washington University Gallery of Art, lecture on current work, St. Louis, MO Critical Mass, North Gallery, The 116 N. 40th series, gallery talk, St. Louis, MO St. Louis Women’s Caucus for Art, Paintings in Space, lecture, University City Public Library, October. St. Louis, MO Purdue University, Structures for the Movement of Imagination, lecture & critiques, Lafayette, IN, Community Gallery, Visions of the Numinous, gallery talk, Kansas City, MO, Kansas City Art Institute, Surving as a Fine Artist, lecture & panel discussion, Kansas City, MO St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, lecture on current work, St. Louis, MO

SYMPOSIA/CONFERENCES 2014 2011 2007 2007 2007 2006

Panelist. Psychoanalytic Institute as part of the Arts and Analysis Program “Creativity and Sculpture“, St. Louis, MO Keynote Speaker. American Institute of Architectre Students QUAD Conference, Carbondale II “Art and Architecture“, Southern Illinois University Carbondate Presenter. Philosophy of Luce Irigaray 2nd Annual Conference, Stony Brook Manhattan, New York, NY Panelist. People Watching at the Pulizer, student-centered symposium The Pulizer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO Symposium Participant. Portrait, Homage, and Embodiment Symposium, The Pulizer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO Symposium Participant. Minimalism and Beyond Symposium, The Pulizer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO

Jill Downen is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute

ARTISTS Laura Beard Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Beverly Fishman

Richard Hull Kim Humphries Ellen Jantzen Michael Jantzen Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Peter Marcus

Judy Pfaff Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Shane Simmons Buzz Spector

Damon Freed Douglass Freed Joan Hall

Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise

Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley

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