Children’s Game #46: Conkers

The Nightwatch documents an action realised by Alÿs in 2004 in which he released a fox into London’s National Portrait Gallery in the middle of the night and used the museum’s CCTV system to follow its movements. The institution was chosen because unlike other institutions it does not conceal its CCTV cameras.

The children of a mountain village near Mosul re-enact a century of Iraqi history, from the secret Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 to the realm of terror imposed by the Islamic State in 2016. The children revisit their past to understand their present.

For the last decade Alÿs has made repeated trips to the dusty highlands south of Mexico City to chase the tornadoes that frequently occur in that region at the end of the dry season. Tornado unfolds in three movements: waiting for the storms, pursuing them, and catching or missing them. Depicting a one-on-one challenge of the power of nature, the work is a recognition of human persistence, emphasizing the necessity of pursuing ideals however unattainable or absurd they may seem. It is also a reflection on the present chaotic state of Mexico and a study of the search for a moment of order within it; scientifically speaking, tornadoes are instances of order emerging from chaos.

Francis Alÿs is filmed by his collaborator Rafael Ortega walking along Fitzroy Square, drumming out rhythms by dragging a wooden stick on the iron railings.

The video shows the artist walking in circles around the flagpole (“Madre Patria”) in Zócalo, Mexico City’s monumental central square, which is flanked by government institutions. This work relates to a storied incident that took place during the Mexican government’s brutal oppression of the 1968 student uprising in Mexico City.

For an indeterminate period of time, the magnetized metal collector takes a daily walk through the streets and gradually builds up a coat mad of any metallic residue lying in its path. This process goes on until the collector is completely covered by its trophies.

For this work Alÿs purchased a gun in Mexico City then walked through the city streets with the weapon in his hand. After eleven minutes he was arrested by the police. The following day he repeated the action, this time in cooperation with the police. By presenting a record of this dramatic action alongside footage of its reenactment, Alÿs blurs the boundaries between documentation and fiction. Questioning the concept of authenticity, this work demonstrates “how media can distort and dramatize the immediate reality of a moment,” the artist has said. Gallery label from Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, May 8–August 1, 2011.

2005, 00:03:07

From the 3rd to the 5th of November 2008, 60 median strips erased by the passage of time were repainted in the former Panama Canal Zone.

The cameras follow a reel of film as it unrolls through the old part of Kabul—pushed by two children, uphill and downhill, like a hoop.

A traditional animation, hand-drawn in 500+ frames (which are also on display as part of the installation). The animation consists solely of a shoe shine: hands move a length of cloth around and across a shoe, syncopated with a minimalistic melody and lyrics written by the artist. Its swaying, repetitive quality draws the audience into a simple and elegant comparison of artistic labor, in the form of drawing, to the marginalized service economy of a global city.

This video performance showcases two works by the artist. In the first, he walks through the streets of London, trailing a wooden drumstick along a series of metal railings, producing a percussive, sometimes bell-like noise. The camera follows behind, focusing on the stick as it strikes the railings. Occasionally, it cuts to wide-angle shots, capturing the awkward and oddly humorous presence of other people. In the second work, titled "Samples II" Alÿs appears even rawer, minimal and radical. He walks around London with a drumstick in hand, creating sounds by playing the metal fences beside him, without a melody. These works are a playful example of one of Alÿs’s ‘interventions’ in the city.

As is well known, ‘gringo’ is the derogatory term Mexicans use to refer to NorthAmerican citizens. Shot in a central province of Mexico, Alÿs’s video portrays the confrontation between a group of dogs protecting their master’s home and an intruder (the cameraman, invisible to the work’s spectators). In this fiction of sorts, the camera takes an active role in the unfolding of the narrative. By examining the way in which its oppressive gaze can be a form of weaponry as much as a shield, it draws attention to how videocameras have become an epitome of power. Acting ‘like a dog among dogs’, Alÿs deliberately set the camera against the animals knowing that dogs loathe direct eye contact. Throughout the film the camera manages to keep the dogs at bay, sometimes providing a physical armour, sometimes actively entering into the game of menace and recognition.

64 Coldstream guards walk separately in London entering through different streets and unaware of one another’s route. Upon meeting, they fall into step and match together, looking or more guards to join up with.