Francis Alys
Francis Alys is a performance artist and a compulsive wanderer. Using documentary films, photographs, videos, paintings and performances, he compiles a collection of personal records that reflect particular social and economic circumstances. Having an up-close look at everyday life, Francis's take on the fleeting and the contingent: "I spend a lot of time wandering around the city... The concept of a lot of works pops up while walking. As a As an artist, my identity is equivalent to placing myself in a mobile environment. My works are records and guides of success. The creation of language and the creation of cities are side by side, and each of my creations is my other A fragment of a story in the making, a map of the city I'm trying to map."
What impressed me the most was his famous Paradox of Practice （As shown in figure）, an equally futile work performed by Alÿs himself in 1997, which is shown in this exhibition as a five-minute video. The video shows the artist pushing a large, heavy block of ice through the streets of Mexico City for nine hours. In the beginning, the artist had to hunched over as hard as he could to push the huge ice cubes. Later, the ice cubes melted slowly, and the volume was reduced to the size of bricks, then cubes, and then cobblestones. At this time, it was much easier for Alÿs to operate. He kicked the ice cubes and wandered around the streets like a game. Go until the ice melts completely and becomes a pitiful little puddle of water on the sidewalk. So the artist's day's labor ended up yielding nothing but a record of his "wasted" time and energy (but since this is an artist's "productive" activity, he wins even if he gets nothing, vice versa)
Although viewers have different interpretations of the work. But in my opinion, I think this is the artist's thinking about the meaning of existence, and the meaning of his behavior, many things are futile, just like many things that exist in the world will eventually disappear, then Why does it still exist? The end result is always the same, which is disappearance. This is in line with some of the philosophical questions I've been thinking about at unit2. No matter what, everything has meaning as long as it exists, even if it eventually dies. The same is true of behavior. Any behavior that seems meaningless has meaning, but this meaning has different understandings and cognitions for different people.
Reference:
artda (2010) Available at: https://www.artda.cn/yishujiakuguowai-c-3799.html (Accessed: date).