.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
"I spend a lot of time walking around the city... The 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 language goes together with the invention of a city. Each of my interventions is another fragment of the story that I am inventing, of the city that I am mapping" (Francis Alÿs, Mexico City, 1993, reproduced on www.postmedia.net).
The work of Belgian painter Francis Alÿs revolves around the human experience in the contemporary metropolis. Drawn to the cities of the Americas, Alÿs walks the streets of the poor urban neighbourhoods as a modern day flâneur, soaking up the concoction of images using photography. Whether it is in South Los Angeles, Sâo Paulo or Havana, Alÿs immerses himself into his surroundings to become just another character in a new neighbourhood. Back in the studio, Alÿs executes his paintings but then undermines art history's obsession with authenticity and authorship by employing billboard painters to multiply and enlarge his original model.
Now a resident of Mexico City, Alÿs originally arrived, in the then impoverished nation, in 1987 as an aid worker for the southern state of Oaxaca. The present lot, Untitled (Installation Project), is the artist's rendition of the contemporary landscape at the heart of Mexico City. Speaking about the place he now calls home and the influence it has had on his oeuvre, Alÿs has said: "It's [Mexico City] more than an influence in the shaping of the practice: it's where I switched from architecture to my current profession. There seems to be a strange chemical reaction happening each time I return; I can arrive emptied and find myself working away two days later, without questioning vainly the mechanics and ethics of the profession. The City provokes an urge to react, you can't ignore it or it'll beat you... I think I am very lucky to have found a place that was coinciding with my obsessions, and that allowed me to develop the case (and supported me in doing so). My 'poetical tendency' is challenged and brought back to life's crude reality just by going down to the corner shop. No ivory tower allowed for the street will always beat your imagination... So, might as well stay on the street... Mexico City has got all the ingredients for 'Modernity', but somehow has managed to resist it. And it acquired a unique identity through the resistance process" (Francis Alÿs in an interview with Gianni Romano, in: 'Francis Alÿs: streets and gallery walls' reproduced in: Flash Art, no. 211, 2000).
The work of Belgian painter Francis Alÿs revolves around the human experience in the contemporary metropolis. Drawn to the cities of the Americas, Alÿs walks the streets of the poor urban neighbourhoods as a modern day flâneur, soaking up the concoction of images using photography. Whether it is in South Los Angeles, Sâo Paulo or Havana, Alÿs immerses himself into his surroundings to become just another character in a new neighbourhood. Back in the studio, Alÿs executes his paintings but then undermines art history's obsession with authenticity and authorship by employing billboard painters to multiply and enlarge his original model.
Now a resident of Mexico City, Alÿs originally arrived, in the then impoverished nation, in 1987 as an aid worker for the southern state of Oaxaca. The present lot, Untitled (Installation Project), is the artist's rendition of the contemporary landscape at the heart of Mexico City. Speaking about the place he now calls home and the influence it has had on his oeuvre, Alÿs has said: "It's [Mexico City] more than an influence in the shaping of the practice: it's where I switched from architecture to my current profession. There seems to be a strange chemical reaction happening each time I return; I can arrive emptied and find myself working away two days later, without questioning vainly the mechanics and ethics of the profession. The City provokes an urge to react, you can't ignore it or it'll beat you... I think I am very lucky to have found a place that was coinciding with my obsessions, and that allowed me to develop the case (and supported me in doing so). My 'poetical tendency' is challenged and brought back to life's crude reality just by going down to the corner shop. No ivory tower allowed for the street will always beat your imagination... So, might as well stay on the street... Mexico City has got all the ingredients for 'Modernity', but somehow has managed to resist it. And it acquired a unique identity through the resistance process" (Francis Alÿs in an interview with Gianni Romano, in: 'Francis Alÿs: streets and gallery walls' reproduced in: Flash Art, no. 211, 2000).