Boat with Legs

2007 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Francis Alÿs

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

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
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John Baldessari

1997

In 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...

Black Hands, White Cotton
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Hank Willis Thomas

2014

Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title...

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No Title
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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
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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...

Lightning
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Paul Kos

1976

Parked on the shoulder of a single lane highway running through a desert landscape, Marlene looks over her shoulder from inside the car at a fierce storm looming over a distant horizon...

Wall Window or Bar Sign (Insanity is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over and Expecting Different Results)
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Mungo Thomson

2014

Starting with Bruce Nauman’s iconic artwork, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) , Mungo Thomson’s neon sign is one of a series that replaces Nauman’s quixotic mini-manifesto with aphorisms from ‘recovery’ culture, especially those made popular by alcoholics anonymous...

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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...

Collectors’ Favorites
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Jennifer Bornstein

1994

Collectors’ Favorites is an episode of local cable program from the mid-1990s in which ordinary people were invited to present their personal collections—a concept that in many ways anticipates current reality TV shows and internet videos...

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An Imaginary Shelter for the Legendary Art Collector and Gallerist Alexander Iolas - via designboom
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An Imaginary Shelter for the Legendary Art Collector and Gallerist Alexander Iolas - via designboom...

Giant Rubber Duck artist on why size matters – ‘instead of us looking at it, it is now looking at us’ – and his miniatures on show in Seoul
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Giant Rubber Duck artist on why size matters – ‘instead of us looking at it, it is now looking at us’ – and his miniatures on show in Seoul | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more Dutch artist and “Rubber Duck” creator Florentijn Hofman in Hong Kong in June 23 for the return of his giant inflatable artwork to Victoria Harbour, this time with a twin...

To See or Not to See: Learning from the Late Great Robert Irwin, Tourist Paintings, and What if Chris Burden Had Gone to Therapy
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To See or Not to See: Learning from the Late Robert Irwin and More Skip to main content By Janelle Zara Plus Icon Janelle Zara View All January 13, 2024 3:50pm Installation view of Robert Irwin's untitled (dawn to dusk) , 2016, at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas...

In The Air Tonight
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Andrew Norman Wilson

2020

On the first day of the Covid-19 lockdown in New York, Andrew Norman Wilson was evicted from his sublet and decided to board a $30 flight to Los Angeles that evening...

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America
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Minerva Cuevas

2006

During 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...

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...

Until It Makes Sense
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Mario Garcia Torres

2004

Mario Garcia Torres imagines cinematic devices to replay stories occasionally forgotten by Conceptual art...

Study for a Recycling Device
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Pedro Reyes

2005

In Reyes’s words, “We should be able to extract the technological nutrients before we excrete our waste...

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Untitled (series)
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Francis Alÿs

2006

This series of small drawings is executed with varying materials—pen, ink, colored pencil, charcoal, and masking tape—on architect’s tracing paper...

The Nightwatch
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Francis Alÿs

2004

The 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...

Perro en Tlalpan (Dog in Tlalpan)
© » KADIST

Gabriel Orozco

1992

Gabriel Orozco often documents found situations in the natural or urban landscape...

Mapa Mundi BR (postal)
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Rivane Neuenschwander

2007

Mapa-Mundi BR (postal) is a set of wooden shelves holding postcards that depict locations in Brazil named for foreign countries and cities...