Francis Alÿs

> ...I spend a lot of time walking around the city...An initial concept for a project often emerges during a walk. As an artist, my position is akin to that of a passer-by constantly trying to situate myself in a moving environment. My work is a succession of notes and guides. The invention of a language goes together with the invention of a city. Each of my interventions is another fragment of the story that I am inventing…
–Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs is one of the most important young artists working in Mexico today. While Alÿs is known internationally for his collaborative works with sign painters or *rotulistas* and for his performance walking projects, he has been quietly making modest paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations and videos. He recently completed a major project for INSITE97, San Diego and has exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Humlebaek, Denmark and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Alÿs will be representing Mexico in the forthcoming São Paulo Biennial.

His upcoming exhibition entitled *le temps du sommeil* at the Contemporary Art Gallery will feature recent diaristic paintings, sculptures, drawings and a video projection completed in the last two years. Much in these works draws on the artist's previous projects.

*Le temps du sommeil* (1996-98) is an important work consisting of approximately 100 small-scale oil paintings (each 4.33 inches by 5.90 inches [11 by 15 centimetres]) composed of figures (and sometimes dogs) engaged in various actions, some of which the artist has previously performed, such as walking with leaking tin of paint and walking with a rod balanced upright in the palm of the hand, and others that record scenes from performances or actions he has imagined. The figures are often depicted within a landscape circumscribed by a brown undercoat. This other surface holds residues of notes and drawings from the artists' sketchbook together with the date the panel was completed. 

Alÿs's two tiny sculptures *The Modernist* (1998) and *La barbe de Courbet* (1998) appear to have stepped out of the panels into the three-dimensional world. While the video animates one of *le temps du sommeil*’s pregnant moments.

Guest curated by Kitty Scott


This is a close-up view of an artwork placed on the wooden desk. On a small pile of white paper napkins, a water-filled glass is placed upside down. A small white human figure stands inside the glass.

thumbnail_02-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

02-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

This image shows two artworks installed in the gallery. On the floor, a desk with a clear glass cup is placed. A collection of small tiles are mounted on the back wall. 

thumbnail_01-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

01-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

A wooden desk and small wall tiles are installed in the front space of the gallery. in the back, white and yellow strings are hanging from the ceiling in front of a painted wooden chair on the floor. 

thumbnail_03-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

03-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

This is a close-up view of small tiles mounted on the gallery wall. On their brick red surfaces, line drawings of white human figures and coloured paintings of exercising humans are depicted.

thumbnail_04-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

04-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

This is a close-up view of small drawings that are taped to the gallery wall. On the sheets of torn trace papers, black line drawings of various human figures and activities are depicted. 

thumbnail_05-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

05-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

A small projector is placed on the light blue painted wooden chair in the gallery. The projector, connected to white and yellow codes, projects a blank white rectangle on the white gallery wall.

thumbnail_06-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

06-FrancisAlys-1998.jpeg

A photograph is attached to the beige-painted door. The picture shows a building’s glass facade behind a passing car. A white line drawing of a finger over lips flotes above the car’s rooftop. 

Francis Alÿs

Exhibitions