2023 ACC CONTEXT Walking, Wandering

Francis Alÿs

〈Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing)〉, 1997.

Documentation of an action, single channel video, color, sound, 4min. 59sec.
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann.

〈Paradox of Praxis 5: Sometimes we dream as we live & sometimes we live as we dream 〉, 2013 .

Ciudad Juárez, México
Single channel video, color, sound, dimensions variable with installation, 7min. 49sec.
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann.

〈Border Barriers Typology: Cases #1 to #23〉, 2019-2021.

Series of 23 paintings, each oil and encaustic on linen on wood, 14.2×18.9cm(23)
Private collection. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann.

Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing)

Francis Alÿs is well known for his poetic and practical performances walking through the city. In the performance Paradox of Praxis 1 with the subtitle “Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing,” the artist pushes a lump of ice through the streets of Mexico City for nine hours. The lump of ice, which is well over the size of a human, becomes small enough to be kicked around, then completely melts away and vanishes.
This work aptly demonstrates a theme commonly apparent in Alÿs’ work: ” Maximum Effort, Minimum Result,” while linking the tension behind this paradox to the realistic conflicts that the city faces. Through the artist’s performed process of hard work with no reward Paradox of Praxis 1 metaphorically illustrates the intense labor and low wages prevalent in Mexico City.

Paradox of Praxis 5: Sometimes we dream as we live & sometimes we live as we dream

The Paradox of Praxis 5, with the subtitle ” Sometimes we dream as we live & sometimes we live as we dream,” shows the artist wandering, kicking around a ball in flames in the night streets of Ciudad Juarez, located on the border between Mexico and the United States. The flaming ball turns into ash and disappears, leaving only scarlet sparks in the streets in the darkness of the night. Nothing is left at the end of the artist’s steps, this work demonstrates Alÿs’ theme of ” Maximum Effort, Minimum Result,” as well. The artist’s wandering about in the darkness with sparks of fire in Paradox of Praxis 5 sheds an illusory light on the desolate landscape of an unstable city, rife with drug cartels.

Border Barriers Typology: Cases #1 to #23

The issue of territorial and national borders is one of Alÿs’ primary concerns. The Border Barrier Typology, composed of 23 paintings, shows the landscapes the artist observed while traveling through various areas of conflict. The series, which includes boundaries between numerous troubled countries, including Israel and Syria, Ukraine and Russia, Mexico and the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan, also includes barbed wire between North and South Korea. These fences, painted white in a desolate space painted in earthen colors, actually take on various forms. The height and shape are different, and the materials such as the barbed wire, wood, cement, etc., are also all disparate. Although they are different, the fences unite in telling us one idea; That this road is no longer walkable due to conflict and exclusion.