Artists
are commonly misunderstood as practitioners in the visual arts only. Yet except
creating arts, practicing the arts or demonstrating the arts are also the
activities that artists engage in. Francis
Alÿs, a Mexico
City-based artist, is such an artist that has produced works in video, painting, performance, documentary film, and
photography.
 |
| Francis
Alÿs in the studio |
Alÿs, who was born in 1959 in Antwerp,
Belgium, studied
architectural history in Tournai (1978–83) and engineering in Venice (1983–6) and originally trained as an architect. Since 1986, he
moved to Mexico City to continue to live and work. The continuous issues of
urbanization and social unrest in Mexico City inspired him to be a visual artist.
His art is centered around observations of and engagement with everyday life. Alÿs
himself described his multi-faceted work as “a sort of discursive argument
composed of episodes, metaphors or parables.” Across various media, he
expresses his anthropological and political concerns through his unique,
imaginative and poetic way. He has pushed a melting block of ice through city
streets and documented as a video or carried a leaking can of paint along the
Israel/Palestine border. As what Alÿs presented to us, even walking can be a narrative
process that shows us how an artist investigates the political and social
spaces.
Art is not limited to what is shown inside
the frame. That is what I have been told via appreciating Alÿs’ work. Besides,
his concerns in society prompt me to explore more about his art-making process.
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