With the element of surprise firmly on his side, the American artist Brad Downey creates powerful interventions that visually disrupt the routine of our urban perceptions. Downey’s interventions in the cityscape can be spontaneous, subtle, and fleeting—it is precisely the way they interact with their surroundings that make them so effective. Some exist for barely half an hour before they are “corrected” again; others integrate themselves into the urban landscape and become a permanent work of art in the process. Downey’s art discourages quick glances and celebrates the double take. It encourages the viewer to take a hard look and refreshes the powers of discrimination that so often become jaded in the visual Babylon of our times.


This lenticular print, commonly called "wiggle picture", flips between before and after Downey's intervention Curb Lift in London, UK, 2008, that existed for 2 hours.