Critical Writing Index

The Distance Between: The Political Peregrinations of Fancis Alys

by Martin Herbert

Modern Painters, Mar. 2007, pp. 84-89

This article describe how Francis Alys art suggests both in the actions and in a semi-documentary way a condition of betweenness, an examination of specific distance and the consequences and implications of going that distance. His work also questions how authorship of an object is magnetized to the course of its journey. Collective determinations, urban myths with social implications are within his art discourse and are reflected in works such as: Zocalo and When Faith Moves Mountains. This last project marked a shift in Alys practices and he says "I could no longer hide behind the ambiguity of metaphors or poetic license". Then in 2004 he went to Palestine and reenacted The Leak, carrying a dribbling paint tin while walking, allowing it to leave an uninterrupted trail behind him.

In 2006 he arranged for two lines of fishing boats one in La Havana the other in Florida's Key West, to line up and face each other across the seemingly unbridgeable ocean.

ITEM 2007.060 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

paseosFrancis Alys

The CollectorFrancis Alys

Paradox of PraxisFrancis Alys

NarcotourismFrancis Alys

The LeakFrancis Alys

Re-EnactmentsFrancis Alys

ZocaloFrancis Alys

When Faith Moves MountainsFrancis Alys

Francis Alys

The Leak

Bridge-Puente

Self Portraits Made by Others