Brad Downey & John Fekner

Brad Downey and John Fekner
Dates Doors Then & More
Lund’s City Centre, 2024–28

During the autumn of 2024, there will be an inauguration of a new artwork by two internationally recognised artists, Brad Downey and John Fekner, who also have connections to the local area. The inauguration of the artwork Dates Doors Then & More coincides with the publication of a new book that visualises and describes the process of creating the new artwork.

The inauguration and book release event will be held at Lunds konsthall on Saturday 30 November at 3 pm. Artists Brad Downey and John Fekner will be in attendance.

Brad Downey

Brad Downey’s oeuvre defies any simple definitions. His work challenges and manipulates – rather than accepting – the conventional practices, rules and norms of artistic production. While identifying a work of art by Downey is certainly possible, it can’t be done with an emphasis on the materials and techniques used. Instead, the most characteristic aspects are the wide range of expressions he uses, and his consistently sharp, sincere, and humorous tone. Much of Downey’s artistic production can be categorised as Independent Public Art, a variety of public art that emphasises its autonomous and independent nature, as opposed to sanctioned, publicly funded public art. For good reason, he has been described as “the most known unknown artist” – a nod to the countless works of art he has created in public spaces.

Downey’s artistic practice travels unhindered, from the peaks of Machu Picchu in Peru to the backstreets of Berlin, the countryside of Slovenia, sacred temple spaces in southern Thailand, and the vast plains of the American heartland. In a Swedish context, projects like A Journey into the Unknown (2019) at Södertälje Hospital, or Making Illegal Permanent (2009) at Rolfsgatan 16 in Malmö serve as two good examples of the varied nature of Downey’s artistic work.

Downey is represented in several international museum collections, including the following: Von der Heydt Museum, Germany, the Norwegian Museum of Contemporary Art, and the KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Denmark.

Brad Downey was born in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, in 1980, but resides in Berlin today. Downey holds a bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute, New York (1998–2003) and a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2003–5)

John Fekner

John Fekner is one of the most important proponents of political and social awareness in street art and graffiti. Fekner’s work in conceptual art, photography, music, poetry, stencils, paintings, and even some early forays into digital art, has kept him constantly at the vanguard of the contemporary art scene.

Fekner’s artistic career began in New York in the 1960s. During the spring of 1977, Fekner created his first “word signs” – handmade, cardboard stencils of just a single or a few words. In his Warning Signs project, Fekner tirelessly pointed out areas that were in desperate need of demolition or reconstruction. Other early projects worthy of mention include Growth Decay, Urban Decay, Industrial Fossil, and The Remains of Industry, none of which were intended to remain in place for prolonged periods of time. All of these works disappeared naturally when the sites in question were refurbished or remediated. Fekner is the more or less recognised author of more than three hundred conceptual spray-painted works made in the 1970s, all of which highlighted social and environmental issues. Concepts like memory, perception, and transformation have always been integral to Fekner's work. Fekner’s love of poetry has also enabled him to connect the personal sphere with larger social structures, and given him the urge to express himself and engage in direct communication in the public sphere

Fekner is represented in several international museum collections, including the following: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Getty Research Institute, CA, Vassar Art Museum, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Museum of Modern Art, NYC, USA, Helmond Museum, Netherlands, Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art, and Malmö Art Museum, Sweden.

John Fekner was born in 1950 in Queens, New York, and still lives and works there today.

About the Artwork Dates Doors Then & More

Brad Downey and John Fekner’s art project revisits and reactivates some of the artworks that John Fekner created in Lund back in the 1970s and 80s. At that time, Fekner showed several exhibitions at two of Lund's foremost art galleries, Galerie St. Petri on Sankt Petri Kyrkogata and Anders Tornberg Gallery on Kungsgatan. He also created a number of unsanctioned artworks in Lund’s city centre 1In 1979, Fekner created several stencil paintings of various dates from the Random Date, series, and in 1984, he created a large stencil painting, We Overfeed Our Heroes Until They Explode, in collaboration with the American artist Don Leicht (1946–2021).

A new, temporary artwork has been installed on the outside of the City Hall, facing Skomakargatan, and will remain on display until the summer of 2028. The artwork is a replica of the metal door that Fekner and Leicht made their painting on, but with the text “WE OVERFEED OUR HEROES UNTIL THEY EXPLODE” cut out of it to replace the spray paint with a relief.

Foundational to this new artwork are the research efforts of the artists, some of which have been reproduced in the book that is to be published during the autumn of 2024. The book also includes an essay written by art historian Peter Bengtsen, which closely follows the work of the artists and the creation of the artwork.

Artists: Brad Downey and John Fekner

Project manager for the artwork: Elin Aspeklev

Text: Elin Aspeklev

Image gallery