Untitled (series)

2006 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Francis Alÿs

location: Mexico City, Mexico
year born: 1959
gender: male
nationality: Belgian
home town: Belgium

This series of small drawings is executed with varying materials—pen, ink, colored pencil, charcoal, and masking tape—on architect’s tracing paper. Alÿs often executes such sketches in preparation for his performances, videos, and larger two-dimensional bodies of work. As the first visual representations of his ideas, they capture his thinking processes at the raw conceptual stage and allow us to gain a deeper understanding of his larger works.


Trained as an architect, Alÿs turned to a visual arts based practice in the early 1990s as a more immediate, direct, and effective way of exploring issues related to urbanization, to the ordering and signification of urban space and to the semiotics of its use. His work initiates with a simple action, either by him or others, which is then documented in a range of media. Alÿs explores subjects such as modernizing programs in Latin America and border zones in areas of conflict, often asking about the relevance of poetic acts in politicized situations. Documentation is central to his practice as well as painting, drawing, and video. In his work, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002) made in collaboration with Mexican critic Cuauhtemoc Medina, Alÿs recruited 500 volunteers outside of Lima, Peru. Each person moved a shovel full of sand one step at a time form one side of a dune to the other, and together they moved the entire geographical location of the dune by a few inches. Critic Jean Fisher linked Alÿs’ work to the radical event of precipitating a crisis of meaning, where the exposure of a void of meaning is confronted by its social situation, leading up to some kind of truth. Francis Alÿs was born in Belgium in 1959. He lives and works in Mexico City.


Colors:



One Must
© » KADIST

John Baldessari

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Untitled (City Limits)
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Allen Ruppersberg

1970

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No Title
© » KADIST

Félix González-Torres

1992

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20 Surrogates
© » KADIST

Allan McCollum

1982

In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...

Untitled (TIME)
© » KADIST

Mungo Thomson

2010

In Thomson’s Untitled (TIME) , every front cover of TIME magazine is sequentially projected to scale at thirty frames per second...

This Exhibition
© » KADIST

Tino Sehgal

2004

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No Title
© » KADIST

Félix González-Torres

1992

Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience...

20 Surrogates
© » KADIST

Allan McCollum

1982

In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...

Sexy
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Yan Xing

2011

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Lost £55m Gustav Klimt Masterpiece To Be Auctioned in Vienna
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Angel Vergara at Axel Vervoordt Gallery
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America
© » KADIST

Minerva Cuevas

2006

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One Minute To Act A Title: Kim Jong Il Favorite Movies
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Mario Garcia Torres

2005

Mario Garcia Torres films a game of Charades among professional actors guessing the former North Korean dictator’s favorite Hollywood films...

Wright Imperial Hotel
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Abraham Cruzvillegas

2004

Wright Imperial Hotel (2004) is a sort of bow and arrow made out of feathers, a São Paulo phone book, and other materials...

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The Nightwatch
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Francis Alÿs

2004

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Perro en Tlalpan (Dog in Tlalpan)
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Gabriel Orozco

1992

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Charco portatil congelado (Frozen Portable Puddle)
© » KADIST

Gabriel Orozco

1994

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