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Francis Alÿs (b. 1959, Antwerp, Belgium) is an artist who works across media and lives and works in Mexico City. He is represented by David Zwirner, New York and Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.

Contents 1 Work 2 Exhibitions 3 External links 4 References

[edit] Work

Alÿs attended the Institute of Architecture in Tournai and the Istituto di Architettura in Venice before moving to Mexico City in 1986 where he started practicing as a visual artist. His work encompasses many media often involving the participation and presence of the artist.^{[citation needed]} These performed events are documented in video, photographs, writing, painting, and animation.

In his best-known work, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), Alÿs recruited 500 volunteers outside of Lima, Peru.^[1] Each person moved a shovel full of sand one step at a time from one side of a dune to the other, and together they moved the entire geographical location of the dune by a few inches. Art critic Jean Fisher writes that "the radical event of art precipitates a crisis of meaning or, rather, it exposes the void of meaning at the core of a given social situation, which is its truth."^[2]

[edit] Exhibitions

Alÿs' work has been shown in many international institutions, including The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2008), the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles(2007), Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany, MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2006); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany; Musée d'Art Contemporain, Avignon, France (2004); Centro nazionale per le arti contemporanee, Rome, Italy [traveled to Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain] (all 2003); and Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2002); and Or Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (1998). His traveling show of portraits of the Saint Fabiola has traveled to London, New York, LAMCA ^[3]

[edit] External links

• Francis Alÿs
• Francis Alÿs at David Zwirner
• Francis Alÿs: Politics of Rehearsal at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2008
• Catalogue for the exhibition Francis Alÿs: Politics of Rehearsal published by the Hammer Museum
• Artforum review of Politics of Rehearsal, 2008
• Francis Alÿs: Fabiola at LACMA, Los Angeles, Winter 2008-2009
• Lynne Cooke's essay on Fabiola, 2008
• Francis Alÿs: Bolero at The Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2008
• Francis Alÿs: Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political and Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become Poetic at David Zwirner, 2007
• Exhibition catalogue with DVD published by David Zwirner
• New York Times review of Francis Alÿs at David Zwirner
• Francis Alÿs published by Phaidon
• Francis Alÿs: The Modern Procession, 2002, presented by Public Art Fund in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art
• Francis Alÿs: Rehearsal II for Performa 05
• Interview with Francis Alÿs, 2005
• Francis Alÿs on FOX News, 2007
• Selected Press on the artist by year
• Biography in spanish

[edit] References