Paradox of Praxis 1:
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| When Faith Moves Mountains[1] |
When we are
still suspecting whether a Chinese fable, which is about the story of a “foolish”
man moving a giant mountain, is possible to happen or not, hundreds of people
have proved how faith really moves mountains in Ventanilla, an
area outside a city called
Lima. On April 11 2002, five hundred volunteers participated in an art project
by the Belgian-born artist, Francis Alys. They were given shovels
and asked to form a single line at the foot of the huge sand dune. By the end
of their work, they moved a sand dune which was sixty hundred foot long about
four inches from its original position. The entire action was recorded as
documentary by the artist.
As Alys
said, the action itself has the potential to be a social allegory, under the
circumstance of Ventanilla. Around 2000, the local people suffered
a lot, experiencing the collapse of the Fujimori dictatorship, owning the
memory of escaping the civil war during ‘80s and ‘90s, living in a place there
was no electricity and running water, but clashes and resistance movements. The
volunteers seemed to represent the local residents, though in the blistering
summer day that shifting sand was everywhere, still working and sweating,
attempting to move “the mountain”. They succeeded and simultaneously showed us
their courageous defiance of the nature, also the government, their current
living situation.
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| When Faith Moves Mountains[2] |
The action is again an expression of what Alys realizes
in the philosophy area. Alys’ another piece in which he showed us how a large
block of ice became water through kept pushing the ice on the street, telling
us sometimes to make something is really to make nothing. Vice versa, through
the mountain moving action, Alys told us sometimes to make nothing is really to
make something. The act of each volunteer was simple and seemed to do nothing
aimlessly. But finally, they really did something “impossible”.
The documentary of the action may not be seen as an
artwork by most people but just a record of an event. The piece is so different
while comparing to the artworks in the galleries or art performances on the
stage, from which it is hard to discover the visual aesthetic. But can the creation
and appreciation of beauty be the standard to identify whether something is
artwork or not? In the past years, art was displayed using different media and the
process and method to create art changed a lot. Doing something may be one sort
of art, via an indistinct way.
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| When Faith Moves Mountains[3] |
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| Paradox of Praxis 1[1] |
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| Paradox of Praxis 1[2] |
Reference
list:
1. Thatcher Lisa, Francis Alÿs – Art that Moves Mountains(2012)
Sheerin Mark, Francis Alÿs: Paradox of Praxis I (Sometimes Doing Something Leads to Nothing)
2.
Sheerin
Mark, Francis Alys: Paradox of Praxis I (Sometimes Doing Something leads to
Nothing) (2010)
I love how the art work When Faith Moves Mountains is given a political meaning; the volunteers represent the citizens being suppressed under the Fujimori dictatorship, the sand dune represents the seemingly unmovable government and the result of the documentary, which is the participants actually moved the sand dune four itches from its position, represents the overthrown of the rulers.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am quite impressed by the artist's theory of "to make something is sometimes to make nothing" and "to make nothing is sometimes to make something".
Thanks for the share! The art work is full of momentum.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like the contrast in the artwork: small people vs grant hill, faith vs establishment, weak vs strong, etc. It also raise me some of the philosophy questions such as "does our existence mean anything?" or "our existence mean only death and absurd?"
I would like to know more about the idea behind the artwork and other similar artwork which sharing the same idea.
Again, thanks for the sharing
Aaron Tsui
Dear Corrine,
ReplyDeleteVery nice presentation you gave in class. For you final paper, I think you can further analyze the strength of this work. For the viewer, whom did not take part in the action, why is this work still so moving? And as you asked in class, what would motivate people to join in such action? Is it unique to the people in Peru and their situation or would it be the same in HK? What is unique and what is universal? In my opinion there are aspects of scale, labor, nature, and humanity that play out in this piece.