We’re On It
The Collaborative Works of Darius Jones and Brad Downey
by Tamara Warren

The work of Darius Jones and Brad Downey teases the boundaries of public works, art and otherwise. Like a postscript into the intimate reflections of social ailments, their sculptures, both tragic and comic in nature, challenge the notion of what it means to reclaim the public domain in an era of privatization.

From the documentary film Public Discourse that united Downey and Jones, whose given name is Leon Reid IV, their process continues to evolve as their influences broaden with art degrees from Pratt Institute, MFAs from prestigious London universities and veteran status in street art circles.

As partners in art crime, they are “On It”, disguised as public service workers to perform their covert installations, wiping metallic grime from calloused palms acquired from rendering clunky, asymmetrical steel sculptures into the crevices of metropolitan locales.

Back in New York from their London residency, they reemerge, toting heavy-duty tools to construct a precarious urban quagmire. Their latest work offers morsels of their street aesthetic for art space ingestion at the Jen Bekman Gallery and overseas.

Using found and forgotten remnants of landscape architecture, they rekindle the functionality of dense materials, easily stepped over in their New York City street proving grounds. Public signs, phone booths and dysfunctional signage are reincarnated from oxy-acetylene torch sparks, creating provocative imagery that force observers to question their immediate surroundings. Jones and Downey flip the perception of far-sighted vision on its side, with a baby stop sign perched next to its standard-issued parent.

While protected private gallery spaces do not require hard hats and transit authority vests, hundreds of collected images from their body of work suggest the tension that belies their aggressive statements on the establishment. While many of their finest public sculptures are long whisked away by the elements — lawful, unlawful and natural forces – photos capture a glimpse of the immediate nature akin to Jones and Downey’s work, that is in essence, reflective of the urban environment’s changeability.