ART CITIES:London-Francis Alÿs
Francis Alÿs uses poetic and allegorical methods to address political and social realities, such as national borders, localism and globalism, areas of conflict and community, and the benefits and detriments of progress. Alÿs’s personal, ambulatory explorations of cities form the basis for his practice, through which he compiles extensive and varied documentation that reflects his ideas and process.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive
In “Ciudad Juárez projects”, at David Zwirner Gallery in London the artist presents a group of works made between 2010 and 2015 in and about Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a once prosperous border city that in recent years has been devastated by drug-related narco-violence. In 1986, he permanently relocated from his native Belgium to Mexico City, since 2004, Alÿs has shifted his attention to the inherent sociopolitical conflict in border, asserting that art is by necessity inextricably linked to politics in these conflicted areas Situated opposite El Paso, Texas on the US-Mexico border, Ciudad Juárez has, since the height of the violence in 2010, become a city marked by displacement, extortion, and social and economic crisis as a result of drug trafficking and turf wars between cartels. The city’s once thriving population has diminished, and the abandoned buildings and ruined landscape of this formerly vibrant center resemble a barren and forgotten city. In the major video installation “Paradox of Praxis 5: Sometimes we dream as we live & sometimes we live as we dream, Ciudad Juárez, México” (2013), made in collaboration with Julien Devaux, Rafael Ortega, Alejandro Morales, and Félix Blume, Alÿs attempts to enact the aphorism expressed in the work’s title, and in doing so problematizes the idea of trying to create something beautiful in the face of a terrible situation. Here, Alÿs kicks a flaming soccer ball through Ciudad Juárez at night. His path is illuminated only by the light from the fire, which he must strike with his foot in order to proceed. The darkness of the night provides a veil for the city’s ever-present problems, including the sale of drugs, prostitution, and police indifference, which are only momentarily glimpsed along his route. Darkness is similarly employed as a rhetorical device in a series of “Ciudad Juárez Postcards” (2013), in which Alÿs has used marker to black out all visual information on found tourist postcards of the city, leaving visible only selected, and often artificial, light sources. Another video, “Children’s Game #15: Espejos, Ciudad Juárez, México” (2013), portrays a group of boys playing a variation of tag in an abandoned housing block. Utilizing shards of mirror as a tactical device to both locate potential threats and shoot light at potential targets and threats, the lighthearted play is contrasted with the reality of the boys’ dilapidated surroundings. Also on view is a group of related paintings and drawings, including a diagrammatic rendering of Ciudad Juárez’s interrelated problems and aspirations; as well as a painting related to Alÿs’s ongoing “Linchados (Lynchings)” series, allegorical scenes which place the artist in the role of witness to violent acts.
Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 24 Grafton Street, London, Duration: 11/6-5/8/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com
