Wikipedia entry
    Introduction
    Francis Alÿs (born 1959, Antwerp) is a Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist. His work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, architecture, and social practice. In 1986, Alÿs left behind his profession as an architect and relocated to Mexico City. He has created a diverse body of artwork and performance art that explores urban tensions and geopolitics. Employing a broad range of media, from painting to performance, his works examine the tension between politics and poetics, individual action and impotence. Alÿs commonly enacts paseos—walks that resist the subjection of common space. Cyclical repetition and mechanics of progression and regression also inform the character of Alÿs' actions and mythology—Alÿs contrasts geological and technological time through land-based and social practice that examine individual memory and collective mythology. Alÿs frequently engages rumor as a central tool in his practice, disseminating ephemeral, practice-based works through word-of-mouth and storytelling.
    Wikidata
    Q558288
    View or edit the full Wikipedia entry
    Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
    Getty record
    Introduction
    Belgian artist based in Mexico City works within an interdisciplinary practice encompassing a variety of media and actions. He studied architecture formally.
    Nationalities
    Belgian, Central American, Mexican, South American
    Gender
    Male
    Roles
    Artist, Cinematographer, Conceptual Artist, Multimedia Artist, Painter, Performance Artist, Photographer, Video Artist
    Names
    Francis Alÿs, Francis Alys, Francis De Smedt
    Ulan
    500116308
    View the full Getty record
    Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

    Works

    197 works online

    Exhibitions

    View all 15 exhibitions

    Publications

    • Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception By Mark Godfrey and Klaus Biesenbach, 2011 Exhibition catalogue, Paperback, 200 pages
    • Francis Alÿs Postcards Francis Alÿs, 2011 Exhibition catalogue, Postcard Box, 30 pages
    Licensing

    If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

    MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/circulating-film.

    If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

    Feedback

    This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].