Untitled (series)
2006 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Francis Alÿs
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:
Related works of genres: » conceptual art, » mexican contemporary artists, » contemporary artist, » conceptual artist, » born 1959
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John Baldessari
1997In One Must , an image of a pair of scissors, accompanied by the words of work’s title, poses an ominous question about the relationship between the image and the text...
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Carlos Amorales
2007This work, a large oil painting on canvas, shows a moment from Amorales’s eight-minute two-channel video projection Useless Wonder (2006)...
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Pedro Reyes
2012Pedro Reyes’s Los Mutantes ( Mutants , 2012) is composed of 170 plates that combine characters from ancient and modern mythologies...
Related works featuring themes of: » Belgium, » Color Photography, » Contemporary Conceptualism, » Contemporary Participation, » Conceptual Art, » Belgian
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Félix González-Torres
1992Behind 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...
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Allan McCollum
1982In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...
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Vincent Leong
2012The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...
Other related works, blended automatically
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Félix González-Torres
1992Behind 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...
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Allan McCollum
1982In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...
Related works sharing similar palette
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Angel Vergara at Axel Vervoordt Gallery – ARTOMITY 藝源 Angel Vergara / Acts & Paintings, Hong Kong / Nov 18, 2023 – Mar 16, 2024 / Opening: Saturday, Nov 18, 1pm – 7pm / Artist Performance with Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Nov 18, 3 pm – 3:30 pm / Axel Vervoordt Gallery 21/F, Coda Designer Centre 62 Wong Chuk Hang Road Entrance via Yip Fat Street, Wong Chuk Hang +852 2503 2220 Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 7pm axel-vervoordt.com Painting is often considered a static art form...
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Reza Aramesh
2016The photographed plaster heads set against the idyllic landscapes of the south of England, subvert the process of image production and memory...
Related works from the » 2000's created around » Mexico City, Mexico
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Minerva Cuevas
2006During her research on primitive currencies and cultural cannibalism, Cuevas came across the Donald Duck comic book issue “The Stone Money Mystery,” where Donald goes on a quest to find missing museum objects...
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Mario Garcia Torres
2005Mario Garcia Torres films a game of Charades among professional actors guessing the former North Korean dictator’s favorite Hollywood films...
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Mario Garcia Torres
2004Mario Garcia Torres imagines cinematic devices to replay stories occasionally forgotten by Conceptual art...
Other works by: » Francis Alÿs
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Francis Alÿs
2004The Nightwatch , which is an ironic reference to the celebrated painting by Rembrandt, follows the course of a fox wandering among the celebrated collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London...
Related artist(s) to: Francis Alÿs » Bruce Nauman, » Gabriel Orozco, » Jimmie Durham, » Rivane Neuenschwander, » Lygia Clark, » Ana Mendieta, » Louise Lawler, » Thomas Hirschhorn, » Wilfredo Prieto, » Abraham Cruzvillegas
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Gabriel Orozco
1992Gabriel Orozco often documents found situations in the natural or urban landscape...
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Gabriel Orozco
1994Charco portátil congelado (Frozen Portable Puddle, 1994) is a photographic record of an installation of the same name that Gabriel Orozco made at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam for the group exhibition WATT (1994)...
