When does Nothing lead to Something?
July 4, 2010 3:22 AM   Subscribe

In Sometimes Making Something leads to Nothing (video), the artist Francis Alys pushes a block of ice through Mexico City until it melts.
In When Faith Moves Mountains, (video) he convinces 500 Peruvian students to move a huge sand dune a few feet.
He walks through Mexico City waving a handgun and he drizzles green paint in Palestine.
Also, he walks into tornados (video).
The Tate Modern opens an exhibition on Francis Alys.
posted by vacapinta (25 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Let me point out that is NOT a tornado, that's what we refer to as a "dust devil", harmless. But, it is a bit of an interesting little video.
posted by HuronBob at 3:41 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


The handgun gag is possibly the dumbest thing i ever saw.
posted by Sukiari at 5:05 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


If you drag your shovel instead of carrying it, you spend a night in the box.
posted by digsrus at 5:10 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


I once rode an off-road motorcycle through a dust devil grinding its mindless way across a desert, and it was an interesting experience, but not very tornadic.
posted by itstheclamsname at 5:13 AM on July 4, 2010


My favourite Francis Alÿs work is the piece he did when he was invited to contribute to a show held "in the border region between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico". He is based in Mexico, and decided to get to the site of the exhibition in California by travelling all the way around the other side of the planet, thus arriving at the show without crossing the US-Mexico border. "The point of this extravagant journey was to emphasis the difficulties faced by Mexican citizens trying to enter the US." (see 3quarksdaily).

In a video interview that I saw on a dvd of some of his work, he said something that I have since tried to keep in mind when making things: "I like to keep the ideas simple, so that they can be described by whoever has seen them, so that they travel by word of mouth." (This is paraphrased, not an exact quote)

Francis Alys is brilliant, and if you don't agree I will fight you.
posted by oulipian at 5:52 AM on July 4, 2010 [10 favorites]


I'm kinda big on art that embraces the ephemeral. There is technique you do when you're teaching people to draw - you do blind drawings, the students never look at their papers and keep their eyes on the object at all times. This is supposed to crease hand-eye coordination and getting use to holding a stylus of course, but it's also to break them of the habit of thinking they did something wrong or didn't make "a good drawing." The drawing doesn't matter, they're thrown away afterwards. What matters is the looking and the recording, it can be surprisingly hard to get people to embrace failure and transition like that but it's always a really interesting experience to watch.
posted by The Whelk at 6:33 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


increase. I don't know how you crease hand-eye coordination
posted by The Whelk at 6:36 AM on July 4, 2010


He sent a peacock to accept his "art genius" award. ;) Brilliant.
posted by effluvia at 8:36 AM on July 4, 2010 [2 favorites]


Calling it a tornado is like driving around a racetrack in a Model T and claiming to have driven the NASCAR experience.

I wouldn't call him brilliant, so much as a stunt artist. I recognize he's got positive motivations, but I'm not impressed.
posted by Atreides at 8:38 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


One of my favourite works by him is his Fabiola collection. Finding one copy of a painting of Saint Fabiola, and then collecting every copy he could out of that one painting (and she had a huge cult almost everywhere. There is something intensely moving about this saint who is was abandoned by the Vatican, painted by an artist who was abandoned by history, being repeated faithfully by hand, not by mechanical reproduction, for the last century and a bit. here is a link to the hispanic society showing of it.

It is the opposite of Ephemeral, it is using his status as someone with aesthetic and moral authority to redeem that which was/is lost. There is something intensely moving about that.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:47 AM on July 4, 2010


I thought, "An artist pushing a block of ice through Mexico City as some sort of ephemeral expression? That could be interesting." It wasn't. It really, really wasn't. I'm afraid the brilliance of Francis Alys is lost on me (now to brace myself for oulipian's wrath).
posted by gruchall at 8:49 AM on July 4, 2010


An artist pushing a block of ice through Mexico City as some sort of ephemeral expression? That could be interesting." It wasn't.

Not all art is for all people. And not all art is supposed to be entertaining in the same way a viral video is entertaining. The point is to think about our surroundings and our culture, and why things are the way they are. Good artists, such as Alys, produce work that helps us consider connections and perspectives that we otherwise may have missed.
posted by archivist at 8:59 AM on July 4, 2010 [3 favorites]


Francis Alys is brilliant, and if you don't agree I will fight you.

I do not agree. Pistols at dawn.
posted by Splunge at 9:05 AM on July 4, 2010


I don't think the word "stunt" adequately describes the work. In a way, it's the opposite of that. The work is more conceptual than performance, it begins as an idea that is then quietly enacted and documented.

"Sometimes doing something poetic can become political, and sometimes doing something political can become poetic" is the subtitle of the "drizzling green paint in Palestine" work, in which Alÿs walked from one end of Palestine to the other along the original Green Line, carrying a leaking can of paint. It's a sentiment which sums up the spirit of his work nicely.

I like Alÿs's work because he works with certain themes that I find interesting - walking, public space, implicit boundaries, found objects, small poetic acts. His work often takes place in public, situating itself in the wider world instead of the safety of the gallery space.

The simplicity of the ideas makes Alÿs's work accessible and immediately enjoyable in a way that most contemporary art fails spectacularly at. At the same time, there is a thoughtfulness and subtle political intent to the work that gives it deeper significance. I think he's great.

If you enjoy Alÿs's work, you might also like Marina Abramović, Vito Acconci, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Janet Cardiff.
posted by oulipian at 9:31 AM on July 4, 2010 [3 favorites]


Let me point out that is NOT a tornado, that's what we refer to as a "dust devil", harmless.

Yeah, my grandfather used to jump into them just for fun when he was a teenager.
posted by homunculus at 9:59 AM on July 4, 2010


This post's about everything you don't think about until you sleep
posted by stevil at 11:48 AM on July 4, 2010


MetaFilter: Your favorite artist sucks. Remind me not to go to museums with you guys.

And, there should be such a thing as an artist who you don't like or 'get' and one that you're sure sucks. Art isn't politics - bad art isn't killing people or doing negative things to society. Why treat it like Hardball with Chris Matthews?
posted by tmcw at 12:51 PM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


I like that the ice cube pushing act was one example of "sometimes doing something leads to nothing" and that he's still thinking of what should he do to illustrate "sometimes doing nothing leads to something". I can't help thinking about it either.
posted by lucia__is__dada at 1:51 PM on July 4, 2010


"sometimes doing nothing leads to something" I think we're in the moss and non-rolling stone area here...
posted by HuronBob at 2:00 PM on July 4, 2010


I recognize he's got positive motivations, but I'm not impressed.

I don't think he's trying to impress you.

Interesting stuff, but the umlaut above the y seems arbitrary and gimmicky. What's up with that?
posted by sour cream at 2:25 PM on July 4, 2010


I recognize he's got positive motivations, but I'm not impressed.

If there is a phrase that makes my heart sink, that's - "Not impressed".
posted by NMcCoy at 5:48 PM on July 4, 2010


In a profession built upon affecting a person on the individual level, it's entirely fine to respond to such attempts as to how one personally was affected...or not.
posted by Atreides at 7:28 AM on July 5, 2010


I think there are two works which made me interested in Francis Alys. And a third work which sealed the deal.

The first was his series of photos of people sleeping in Mexico city. Sleeping on benches, on sidewalks, on shopping carts, on cars. The photos have this cumulative effect. Here are people who are in another world, escaping this one or dreaming of this one.

The second was Fabiola which PinkMoose mentioned above. Just take a look at this. Over the past 15 years, Alys has been collecting paintings of this same woman, all by different artists. To see his collection, all at once, is amazing. All the paintings look the same. As you approach each one, you see the hand of the individual artist. The rendering of her nose and shawl. Some even have her facing the wrong way or with a green shawl instead of a red one. The unifying theme is the painting. The real theme is this invisible collective effort of Mexican street artists with Alys as curator.

The last work is Patriotic Tales. It is a mesmerizing work. Alys leads sheep around the central flagpole in Mexico City's Zocalo. The sheep follow him in a perfect circle. As he walks around and around, more sheep join in. From the Tate website:

Patriotic Tales 1997 targets the rut of Mexican politics in other ways. Alÿs leads a circle of sheep around the flagpole in the Zócalo, the ceremonial square and the site of political rallies. The action is based on an event in 1968 when civil servants were paraded in the city to show support for the government, but bleated like sheep to protest their subservience.

It is an affecting video. The picture is black and white and a bit grainy. The only sound is a tolling cathedral bell.
posted by vacapinta at 7:49 AM on July 5, 2010


Calling it a tornado is like driving around a racetrack in a Model T and claiming to have driven the NASCAR experience.

The intent of that work was not to impress anybody. Alys doesn't do stunts so much as make statements. That clip was a tiny clip from a larger video shown as part of the exhibition.

There are longer, silent stretches where you see dust devils form and then die out on an extended landscape. Finally, you see one form and start to gather speed. Soon, it has become this furious whirlwind. He runs after it, with his camera bouncing alongside. As he approaches it, the sound becomes tremendous and it certainly looks dangerous. He dives right in. The screen then becomes chaos.

The guy did this over and over again. He did it for years, just to build up enough material for a small film.

It's an allegorical statement. Here's the curator's interpretation:

For Alys, the dust storm suggests the imminent collapse of a system of government or of political order. The act of running into the storm, which we see repeated over and over again, also invites interpretation...

Reaching the centre of the storm, the artist is breathless and almost blinded, yet he encounters a furtive moment of peace that could hint at a new moment of possibility.

posted by vacapinta at 8:07 AM on July 5, 2010


While this is something I love, it sure does not make for interesting video. It's the kind of ceptual art I much would prefer to read about, like Richard Long's walks.
posted by Theta States at 8:24 PM on July 5, 2010


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