(Above) Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Cuauhtémoc Medina and Rafael Ortega, When Faith Moves Mountains (Cuando la fe mueve montañas), Lima (2002). Courtesy Francis Alÿs and David Zwirner, New York. Image: Video Still. © Francis Alÿs
Exhibition: Francis Alÿs – A Story of Deception, Tate Modern, London, until September 5 2010
The beauty of much work by Francis Alÿs is you don’t need to see it to get something from it. Many pieces take the form of actions performed beyond the gallery. It is often enough to hear about them.
Take Re-enactments is a film which documents 12 minutes the artist spent walking the streets of Mexico City carrying a firearm in plain view. It ends with his sudden arrest by a carload of police. Part two of the film is a reconstruction of the action, performed with full co-operation of those police. Once again he is arrested.
It makes for a "crazy story", to borrow a phrase from one of the students who took part in another improbable Alÿs escapade. In this case, 500 participants shovelled their way across a 500 metre-wide sand dune in Peru, shifting it 10cm in the process.
The name of this stage-managed miracle is When Faith Moves Mountains (Cuando la fe mueve montañas). You can be sure it has become a local legend. The film itself is secondary.
Francis Alÿs, Tornado Milpa Alta (2000-10). Video documentation of an action and related ephemera. Courtesy Francis Alÿs and David Zwirner, New York. Image: Video Still. © Francis Alÿs
The current show at Tate Modern is the Belgian emigré's largest show to date, and it is well stocked with tales like those above. Others find the artist chasing tornadoes, pushing ice through the streets and trailing paint along a forgotten border between Israel and Jordan.
Viewers of that piece can choose a soundtrack from one of 10 critical commentaries. Indeed, politics is never far away from the showmanship which informs so much of the work.
So the sand dune already mentioned is shown to be next to a shanty town outside Lima. The stunt with the gun is a comment on the supposed lawlessness of Mexico City. This show sets out to demonstrate poetic acts can be political and vice versa.
Sculpture, sketchpads, animation, installation and painting all feature in A Story of Deception. But they cannot compete with the time, say, that Alÿs wandered around Copenhagen for a week after taking a different narcotic each day.
No record of this act has found its way into the current show. It takes place in your mind, not just in the gallery.
Open 10am-6pm Sunday-Thursday (10pm Friday and Saturday). Admission £10/£8.50. Book online.
Curator Mark Godfrey chairs a discussion of the artist's work in The Poetics of Experimentation at Tate Modern's Starr Auditorium on June 19, 2pm-5pm. Tickets £15/£12, booking recommended. Book online.
Assistant Curator Kerryn Greenberg presents an overview of the show in the exhibition on July 19, 6.30pm-8pm. Admission £15/£12. Book online.
Keep up to date with Culture24's exhibition news, reviews and previews with iGoogle - a more personal way to use Google.com
