Jill Downen: As If You Are Here by Bruno David Gallery

J I L L D OW N E N AS IF YOU ARE HERE

bruno david gallery

JILL DOWNEN As If You Are Here

February 5 - March 12, 2016 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: AS IF YOU ARE HERE Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Marisa Drewes and Ashley Seo-Hyung Lee Design Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Jill Downen Photographs by Richard Sprengeler, E. G. Schempf and Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Installation of “As If You Are Here” (detail) First Edition Copyright © 2016 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

AS IF YOU WERE THERE by James McAnally AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

AS IF YOU WERE THERE by JAMES McANALLY 2

By this exhibition you may contemplate the variations of infinite rooms, as if you were there. The Anatomy of Architecture, part 2, sect. II, mem. IV ..Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel

And yet, the rooms themselves are not there. These are variations on the same room, the one that you are in. An anatomy of architecture upended - the body made god-like because the rooms are miniaturized, molded and observed from above, squinting in. Jill Downen’s array of spaces that make up As If You Are Here are in intimate conversation with the modernist space of exhibition. The iconic white walled modern corpus is disjointed and dismantled – made shippable even. The specific works on view, like the white cube itself, acquire “ some of the sanctity of the church, the formality of the courtroom, the mystique of the experimental laboratory”i as they accumulate across the gallery. However, Downen upends Brian O’Doherty’s proposition that we have now reached “a point where we see not the art but the space first,” inserting instead space as a thing to lean over, peer into. In other words, proposing space as an object. The schema of the cube shows itself to be an inexhaustible typology, a series without end. Spanning from clean, chapel-like cubes to rooms in various types of disarray, Downen moves through a condensed overview of strategies one can take to remake space. To fix this process within a single exhibition feels restrictive, as if we are always only seeing part, only ever able to see part. Brought down to a micro scale, the gallery space as the original “evenly lighted cell…crucial to making the [art] work” again becomes one room among many, de-privileged and reshaped.

A library of rooms The exhibition is a library of rooms, not endless, but nonexistent nonetheless. Maquettes with no referents. The spaces, as objects, are fictional, poetic, unfixed. Many embed directly into the wall, suggesting the fiction that any wall opens into another space, just beyond the surface. The white wall as well gives way to its other planes. (In the early seventeenth century, Cavalieri said that all solid bodies are the superimposition of an infinite number of planes.) So these seventeen rooms stand in for innumerable rooms, as if they were already there. You too are architectural, in an infinite sense - your planes constantly shifting, sloughing off, cracking like plaster inappropriately applied. The room is under your skin, ribbed and swept clean. You are always and never there.

A specific fiction Distinct from Downen’s previous experiments in “Three-Dimensional Sketchbook” and subsequent exhibitions in which her hand-rendered maquettes were considered as sketches or models for future projects, these works exist in an alternate time altogether, with reference to past installations, in-process studio works, hypothetical ruins and immolations. Several works come outfitted with miniature crates, half-formed sculptures and mounds of materials. Others obliquely reference real spaces, seemingly knowable, but in its accumulation, the series creates a sequence of self-contained contexts - a kind of retrospective of speculative spaces conceived entirely in the studio. Taken together, the works catalogue the artist’s time and space, collapsed. If the white cube is a kind of denial of time, the studio becomes a marker of overlapping timelines: potential paths forward, forgotten traces back, a space of multiple presents. The infinite planes of the studio offers a glimpse into the potential embedded in the work with all the objects not made or not shown existing together simultaneously. If the spaces are approximations of a studio, then the studio at any given moment may be an approximation of an exhibition. An exhibition itself is forever an approximation of a world as-if it were shifted, slightly, towards the artist’s specific fiction.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never find the house without a map You repeat: it suffices that a room be possible for it to exist. Only the impossible is excluded. For example: no room can be a ladder, although no doubt there are rooms which display and negate and demonstrate this possibility and others whose structure corresponds to that of a ladder. There are rooms in which one collapses. There are rooms burned out and rebuilt; rooms gold leafed and repentant. There are rooms in which one sweeps up the plaster crashing out of corners. There are rooms where one weeps once. There are rooms where the ladders meet other ladders, scaffolding out of the room entirely. The whole world of ideas is an instrument to enable us to orient ourselves in the real world, but is not a copy of that world. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never find the house without a map, she says, knowing the house itself is a fiction never to be located, its possibility enough to live in.

A litany of rooms Of course we are in a room. A concourse of rooms. A litany of rooms. And we are out of joint. We keep saying we, though there is only you. And it is your room we are living in. We are not mapmakers, but are lost nonetheless. Those for whom maps no longer even make sense, just one space after the other. Unshadowed, white, clean, artificial - the space is devoted to an absolute absence of maps where nowhere and everywhere converge in our infinite planes. There were fires first, then cracks in the earth floor, walls shedding texture then coherence, followed by the sun stopping circulating as if pinned in a fixture, halogened overhead. Unshadowed, impossible. We are here: outside of Marfa, in St. Louis, we are in Chicago, in Gary, Indiana. Wayfinding our way inside, we walk through arches, stumbling upstairs with memory splintering on the unstained wood floors where we slept. We return to the rebuilt grid, holes running under us (there’s never enough floor when running) and the walls waver somewhere between assemblage and disaster (as art should when advancing). We are arriving in silence where the light is all wrong because it is perpetually 1:30pm and the room is still swaying. Space deconstructed, dismantled through addition. The finger forms remain in plaster, the hand always adding its mark. The only thing missing is the map (therefore, the home) - otherwise everything is exactly the same as before. But we are lost nonetheless in a speculative space past even fiction. The floors have returned and we make our way to the room, our room, painted in powder. Even the thread is complicit, gridded out, unraveling. It is still 1:30pm, though there is no time, though there is never time for it all. The light is always elsewhere, expecting disaster. We return as if “you” are “here”: a time collapsed. Time, a maquette. What if you are the sketch, your body always infinite, unfinished? The exhibition can be complete, it is you the viewer that is undone.

Table of authorities: Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel Hans Vaihinger, The Philosophy of As-If Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space i- Brian O’Doherty, “Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space,” p 14.

James McAnally is an artist, curator and critic whose work seeks to create a space of expanded authorship and exchange, considering the hyphens and hybrids between these terms. He is the founder, Co-Director, and Curator of The Luminary, an incubator for new ideas in the arts based in St. Louis, MO. McAnally also serves as the executive editor and co-founder of Temporary Art Review, an international platform for contemporary art criticism that focuses on artist-run and alternative spaces, and is a founding member of Common Field, a new national network of independent art spaces and organizers. McAnally has presented exhibitions, talks and lectures at venues such as the Walker Art Center, Queens Museum, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation with Ballroom Marfa, Cannonball, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Carnegie Mellon University, (e)merge art fair, Washington University in St. Louis, Moore College of Art and Design and University of Missouri - Columbia, and has served as a Visual Arts panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. His work in its various forms has been discussed widely through such publications as the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, USA Today, Art in America, Chicago Tribune, Hyperallergic, Art Papers, ArtFCity, Artnet, and Frieze. McAnally is a 2015 recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The production, exhibition, documentation, and print catalogue of ‘‘As If You Are Here” was accomplished with grant support from the following:

The Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award Fellowship The Kansas City Art Institute Faculty Development Grant ArtsKC Inspiration Grant Studios Inc Residency Program Bruno David Gallery

The exhibition has been realized with the generous contribution of Studios Inc and Patrons: Brad and Linda Nicholson, DTZ - Michael Mayer, and Jack and Karen Holland. The studio assistants: Andrew Leider, Salacia Loe, Ben Davis, Elizabeth Kay Landes, Albert Owens, and Elizabeth Dalton. Special thanks to Colby K Smith, Charles Schwall, Bruno L. David, Lenore Nentwig, Wayland Downen, and Greg Downen for their support.

AfterwordS BY BRUNO L. DAVID Bruno David is pleased to present a new exhibition of sculptures by Jill Downen. Marking the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, Jill Downen’s exhibition, As If You Are Here, activates the volume of the main gallery through a series of miniature rooms situated inside of walls and viewed through small windows. The intimate interiors flow from an imagined place of diversity from the humble to the sacred; the industrial to the refined. Downen’s shaping of materials such as plaster, concrete, gold leaf, and glass afford each room its haptic presence; surfaces and forms seem to defy their scale, illuminated by light and shadow. As If You Are Here invites viewers to unlock a desire to explore and discover conditions that shelter the human imagination. Jill Downen is the recipient of numerous awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts residency, and Cité International des Arts Residency in Paris and the Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Arts Award. She has created site specific installations for museums such as American University Museum in Washington DC, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Great Rivers Biennial and its 10th Anniversary exhibition, Place is the Space. Downen 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 Magazine, Art Papers, Kansas City Star, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The New York Times, and Bad at Sports. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA as a Danforth Scholar from Washington University in St. Louis - Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Jill Downen is currently an assistant professor and chair of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute. She currently maintains her practice in Kansas City as part of the Studios Inc Residency Program. 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 James McAnally for his thoughtful essay. I am deeply grateful to Marisa Drewes, Alex DeRosa and Ashley Seo-Hyung Lee, 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, Marisa Drewes, Ashley Lee, Orianna Montenegro, Alex DeRosa, and Ryan Eckert.

CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

Jill Downen: As if you are here (installation view)

The Room Under My Skin, 2015 Wood, plaster, concrete, gold leaf, acrylic, latex 14 x 11 x 18 inches (35.56 x 27.94 x 45.72 cm)

The Room Under My Skin, 2015 (Inside detail view)

The Room Under My Skin, 2015 Wood, plaster, concrete, gold leaf, acrylic, latex 14 x 11 x 18 inches (35.56 x 27.94 x 45.72 cm)

The Room Under My Skin, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never find the house without a map, 2015 Thread, dry pigment, wood 4.5 x 6 x 8 inches (11.43 x 15.24 x 20.32 cm)

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never find the house without a map, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Anteroom, 2015 Gold leaf, glass, wood 4.5 x 6 x 8 inches (11.43 x 15.24 x 20.32 cm)

Anteroom, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Swept Clean, 2015 Plaster, paper, acrylic, wood 8.5 x 10 x 15 inches (21.59 x 25.4 x 38.1 cm)

Swept Clean, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Conflagration, 2015 Wood 8.5 x 10 x 15 inches (21.59 x 25.4 x 38.1 cm)

Conflagration, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Rebuilt, 2015 Wood, plaster, paper, acrylic 9 x 10 x 14.5 inches (22.86 x 25.4 x 36.83 cm)

Rebuilt, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Curtain, 2015 Wood, plaster, acrylic 9.5 x 10 x 18 inches (24.13x 25.4 x 45.72 cm)

Curtain, 2015 (Inside detail views)

Paper Eggshell, 2015 Concrete, paper, plaster, LED light 9.5 x 10 x 18 inches (24.13 x 25.4 x 45.72 cm)

Through A Roof, 2015 Wood, acrylic 14.5 x 12 x 15 inches (36.83 x 30.48 x 38.1 cm)

Plexus, 2015 Wood, acrylic, concrete 14.5 x 12 x 15 inches (36.83 x 30.48 x 38.1 cm)

Plexus, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Ribbed Vault, 2015 Wood, latex 14 x 10 x 18 inches (35.56 x 25.4 x 45.72 cm)

Ribbed Vault, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Spinal Column, 2015 Paper, plaster, wood, latex 14 x 10 x 18 inches (35.56 x 25.4 x 45.72 cm)

Spinal Column, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Together UnNameable, 2015 Glass, gold leaf, plaster, latex 12 x 15 x 17.5 inches (30.48 x 38.1 x 44.45 cm)

Together UnNameable, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Outline, 2015 Plaster, concrete, thread, wood, polystyrene 18 x 11 x 29.5 inches (45.72 x 27.94 x 74.93 cm)

Outline, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Beyond this Point, 2015 Plaster, acrylic, chalk, wood, polystyrene 15 x 12 x 17.5 inches (38.1 x 30.48 x 44.45 cm)

Beyond this point, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Duct, 2015 Wood, plaster, plastic 10.5 x 6 x 5 inches (26.67 x 15.24 x 12.7 cm)

Duct, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Quake, 2015 Wood, concrete, plaster, latex paint 14 x 11 x 18 inches (35.56 x 27.94 x 45.72 cm)

Quake, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Upstairs, 2015 Wood, plaster, latex 7.5 x 5 x 6 inches (19.05 x 12.7 x 15.24 cm)

Upstairs, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Wayfinding, 2015 Polystyrene, plaster, latex 15.5 x 15 x 29.5 inches (39.37 x 38.1 x 74.93 cm)

Wayfinding, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Silence, 2015 Wood, burlap, plaster 17.5 x 12 x 13 inches (44.45 x 30.48 x 33.02 cm)

Silence, 2015 (Inside detail view)

Jill Downen: As if you are here (installation view)

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 2016 2015 2013 2010 2009

Arts KC Inspiration Grant, Kansas City, MO Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship, Kansas City, MO Studios Inc Residency 2013- present, 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 Grand Center Visionary Award (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 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1995 1989

Bruno David Gallery, As If You Are Here, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Site Unseen: Architectural Installations, Studios Inc, Kansas City, MO Ceiling Scape, Hown’s Den, Kansas City, MO Three Dimensional Sketchbook, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) 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 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 2016 2015 2014 2013 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004

Burst of Memory, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Kansas City Flatfiles, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO Dynamic, Steckline Gallery Newman University, Wichita, KS Ontology of Influence, Ronald Leax and Alumni Exhibition, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Exhibition, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO (brochure) The Center is a Moving Target: If You Live(d) There, curated by Erin Dziedzic, Kemper at the Crossroads, Kansas City, MO Recent Acquisitions, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK “and/or” Buzz Spector curator, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Studios Inc 2015, resident exhibition, Kansas City, MO Studios Inc 2014, resident exhibition, Kansas City, MO Kansas City Flatfile, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO 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, The Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, NJ Over Paper, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Monochrome, Manifest Creative Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH (catalogue) Hybrida, works on paper, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO 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 Symbiosis, Kirkland Fine Arts Center, Millikin University, Decatur, IL Inaugural Exhibition, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Projects ‘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

2004 2003 2002 2001

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

SELECTED REVIEWS/ ARTICLES/ MEDIA McAnally, James Denise Kruse Cinday Hoedel James Martin Erin Dziedzic Neil Thrun Dana Self Christel Highland Halle Smith Anne Canfield Kate Allen Nathan Mullins Tessa Glass Greg Peterson 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 Beall, Dickson Cooper, Ivy Cooper, Ivy

“As if You Were There”, Essay. Bruno David Gallery Publication (catalogue), May 2016 “Artspeak: Q&A with Jill Downen”, Ladue News, 01/07/16 “Charlotte Street Foundation fellows explores space, memory, perspective in KCAI exhibit”, Kansas City Star, December 05, 2015 “Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards Exhibition”, KC Studio, November 04, 2015 “Jill Downen: The Approach“ brochure essay for 2015 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Awards, October 23, 2015 “The Center is a Moving Target“, KC Studio, October 19, 2015 “Site-Unseen: Architectural Installations“, KC Studio, Septerber 28, 2015 “Artist Educators“, KC Studio Magazine, March- April, 2015 “Studios Inc Beneficiaries Bedazzle“, Kansas City Star, January 29, 2015 “Faculty Profile“, KCAI President’s Report, 2013- 2014 “Art 314 Featured Arist Jill Downen, Joy and Cake Blog“, November 19, 2014 “Architecture Like Flesh“, Mississippi Modern Blog, September, 2014 “Under Construction“, Register News, Mt. Vernon, IL August 05, 2014 “Architectural Art comes to Cedarhurst“, Mt. Vernon Sentinel, IL August 04, 2014 “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 “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

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. Cooper, Ivy. Harrison, Helen A. Hughes, Jeffrey.

“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. “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.

Bonetti, David. Zapf, Rudy Cooper, Ivy Woodcok, Tim Bonetti, David Cooper, Ivy Bonetti, David Callahan, Theresa Martelli, Rose. Bonetti, David. Cooper, Ivy. Bonetti, David. Cooper, Ivy. Bonetti, David. Callahan, Theresa. Bonetti, David. Bonetti, David. Callahan, Theresa. Smith, Brian. __________. Sarah Szczepanski. Brouk, Tim. Zeller-Michaelson.A. Smith, Brian. __________.

“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 “Downtown Gallery Showcases Five Emerging Artists’ Work,” West End Word, January 21, 2004 “Smith Elliot: The Gallery Looks In The Mirror For Its 20th.”, Riverfront Times, September 15-21, 2004, p. 32. St. Louis, MO. “Everything Show”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 18, 2004. p. F8. St. Louis, MO. “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Art...”, Riverfront Times, July 28-August 3, 2004, p. 42. St. Louis, MO. “Women Only”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 9, 2004. p. F4. St. Louis, MO. “Women Only”, Riverfront Times, April 28-May 4, 2004. p. _.St. Louis, MO. “Gallery Hopping in the CWE”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 2004. St. Louis, MO. “The Danforth Scholars Show.” West End Word, January 21,2004. St. Louis, MO “3 Sculptural-installation Artists are Great Rivers Biennial winners.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 30, 2003. St. Louis, MO. “Body/Building.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 9, 2003. St. Louis, MO “Body Art: Jill Downen’s Installations are Intelligent...” West End Word, November 12, 2003. St. Louis, MO “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 “Anxious Architecture”, Purdue Exponent . August 27, 2001. St. Louis, MO “Anxious Architecture,” Lafayette Journal and Courier, August 19, 2001. St. Louis, MO “MFA Thesis exhibit”, West End Word, May 10, 2001. St. Louis, MO “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

PULBIC LECTURES/ VISITING ARTIST 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, IL Kansas City Art Institute, “Current Perspective” lecuture series, Kansas City, MO H&R Block Artspace, gallery talk Mid America Arts Alliance Studios Inc Gallery Talk, Kansas City, MO Nerman Museum, Overland Park, KS 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 Reference, 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 Krannert Art Museum, public lecture, Urbana-Champaign, IL

2006 2005 2004 2001 2000 1999 1998 1994 1993 1992

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 2006

Conference Attendee. Marfa Dialogues, St. Louis, MO Panelist. Psychoanalytic Institute as part of the Arts and Analysis Program “Creativity and Sculpture“, St. Louis, MO Keynote Speaker. American Institute of Architecture Students QUAD Conference, “Art and Architecture“, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, IL 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

PUBLIC ART 2014 2010

Skeleton & Skin, Mitchell Museum, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, IL Currents, Interactive permanent installation for Center of Creative Arts (COCA), St. Louis, MO (with Act 3)

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

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ARTISTS Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Michael Byron Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Beverly Fishman Damon Freed

Douglass Freed Ellen Jantzen Michael Jantzen Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise Judy Pfaff

Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Shane Simmons Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Ken Worley Monika Wulfers