Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
February 2023
February 11–September 17, 2023
Since 1999, Alÿs has been producing videos that document the games that children traditionally play in streets and backyards around the world. Children's Games is an ongoing archive of urban practices that modernization is banishing from daily life, as the concept of public space is being disrupted by the predominance of vehicular transport, and the hoarding of free time by electronic amusements.
The children's diversions that Alÿs records are an endangered subterranean culture that linked generations and crossed borders, but they are also extremely interesting for their conceptual implications. The rules, images, and references project a variety of concepts about time and the world, and suggest a potent and ancient substratum for our shared experience—an additional reason why we should worry about their imminent demise.
Learn more at MUAC.