2020
The Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts has named Belgian artist Francis Alÿs the winner of the Rolf Schock Prize in Visual Arts. The nearly $40,000 award is one of four prizes that were established and endowed by a bequest from Swedish artist and philosopher Rolf Schock (1933–1986). Administered by the Schock Foundation, the Rolf Schock Prizes were first bestowed in 1993 and have been awarded intermittently ever since. They also honor contributions to the fields of music, mathematics, and logic and philosophy.
Born in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium, Alÿs lives in Mexico City. He studied architecture at the Institut Saint-Luc in Tournai and technology at the Istituto di Architettura in Venice before settling in Mexico in 1986. Through his practice, which encompasses painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, film, and performance, he uses allegory to address political and social realities, national boundaries, power and vulnerability, and conflict and community.
The prize citation said that Alÿs was selected for a “body of work that is as profound as it is extensive.” It stated: “With seriousness and acuity, [Alÿs] addresses real, tragic situations and circumstances which in his poetic renditions become universal and find their way into our hearts. His extensive projects, such as moving mountains and building bridges between continents, always denote the individual human step or measure. In this way [Alÿs] makes a space for us as participants rather than viewers when we are confronted by his works.”
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