Brad Downey (born 1980 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American artist, political activist, and filmmaker. Downey lives in Berlin. Education Downey earned a fine art master's degree in painting and sculpture from the Slade School of Art, where he studied under Bruce McLean. He grew up in a United States Marine Corps family. Pratt Institute drew him to New York City in 1998, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Documentary Filmmaking. Work Through varied work and media, and persistent changes in direction, Brad Downey has avoided one signature visual style. Downey initially became known for transforming public signage into artworks, which he, at first anonymously, installed in public space disguised as a construction worker. His earliest motifs were sculptures of anthropomorphized street furniture dissociating from their intended function. These early works were often made in collaboration with Leon Reid IV. The ephemeral nature of this early series can still be found in many of his works today. With collaborators Quenell Jones and Tim Hansberry, Downey directed Public Discourse (2003), a 38-minute documentary about graffiti and street art, which screened at numerous locations including the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Copenhagen International Documentary Festival and Transmediale in Berlin. The film shows work by artists such as Swoon, Shepard Fairey, Revs, Nato, Desa, Ellen Harvey, JJ Veronis, and Johnny Swing from the Rivington School, and features original music by Japanther. Public Discourse was distributed by Video Data Bank. In 2007 Downey was awarded SEEDA Arts Plus award for a commission with the Tour de France. Though he completed his installation, the artwork was removed and dismantled by Kent Highway Services before its unveiling because of its potential to confuse pedestrians. In 2008, Downey sprayed green paint on the shopping windows of Berlins historical KaDeWe mall, which the owners reported to the police as an act of vandalism. However, Downey had been contracted by the Lacoste clothing brand (along with 11 other artists) for an exhibition at KaDeWe celebrating the 75th anniversary of the brand, and he maintained that he was just fulfilling his contract. Die Tageszeitung speculated that the incident might have been a media stunt by Lacoste. These speculations are contradicted by the fact that after the action Lacoste kicked Brad out of the exhibition, deleted him from the press material, and never paid him, what Jan Josweg from Die Tageszeitung described as "The fact is KaDeWe