Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne
2021
October 15, 2021–January 16, 2022 This solo show presented an overview of Francis Alÿs’s video work from the last thirty years, with an emphasis on walking, one of the central themes in Alÿs’s practice. Through his seemingly insignificant walks, Alÿs not only reimagines the city, he also creates narratives, spreads rumors, and maps the social fabric of the place through actions that are sometimes short and sometimes carried out over long distances or many hours. He is often dragging, pushing, or carrying an accessory that stands in for a clue to reading the fable spun by the body in motion.
While Alÿs figures as a protagonist in most of his early videos, he moves behind the camera in Children’s Games, a series of works begun in 1999. In these videos, shot in a number of countries, the imaginary spaces of childhood blend with the fictional spaces of the artist, offering him an entry point when dealing with unknown situations or contexts. During his first trip to Kabul in 2010, for instance, Francis Alÿs observed children playing and filmed one of their favorite games, which was the inspiration for Reel-Unreel (2011), one of the core works to come out of his explorations in Afghanistan. It is featured in the Lausanne show along with a large selection of paintings and works on paper. In this project, as in his city wanderings, the artist reveals the deeply subversive potential of play and fiction, while making it possible, short of refashioning reality, to imagine and see it differently.