for, between, beside, like, inside, around, near, of, on, under, off, until, behind, to, through, within, without, over, pass, along, among, following, against, from, outside, toward, beyond,
Performance documentation, 2024, Underdonk Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Photos by Joanna Seitz
Downey’s performance for the show’s opening, a series of routine and absurdist gestures drawn from their studio practice, elucidates an embodied language and knowledge often buried within an image’s final veneer. Downey’s performance asks—what kind of relationship will I have with my body today, with you, through you, with us, for us? In the opening performance Downey will rearrange their work as set design– upending the curatorial ideal of a singular, idealized installation or the reification of artworks in a final form. Scraps of unfinished works, punctured with holes and grommets, will be hung from hooks and ad hoc handles. Both performance and paper works invite intimacies that speak to the shifty and shifting power relations that occur between us.