The Academy Blog

Alÿs, Untitled from When Faith Moves Mountains

During the off-season of the Chelsea galleries in New York, art lovers from all parts come to the lineup of summer exhibitions at the big museums. This line up for this summer is nothing to scoff at – the Met boasts a Richard Serra Drawing Retrospective and Alexander McQueen exhibition that have museum-goers queuing up, while MoMA shows off Graphic Impulse, an impressive show of German Expressionism that has been a big hit. The hype from Graphic Impulse may have taken attention away from another gem currently on view there, an exhibition entitled Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception. (Museum of Modern Art, May 8 – August 1, 2011.) Alÿs is an internationally known artist and this two part show is a massive survey of his most important work made in the last two decades. I wasn’t as familiar with Francis Alÿs as I would’ve liked to be before the show, but after reading numerous reviews and seeing MoMA ads all over I was convinced to add it to my list of shows to be seen.

The title of the show couldn’t be more appropriate. Alÿs’s work is indeed deceptive, presenting itself with the aura of being serious and relevant in a deadpan fashion but leaving you with a measure of skepticism about its sincerity. It is a puzzling yet provocative experience of artistic semantics that not unlike an essay by Jean Baudrillard.

Alÿs, Cuentos Patrióticos

Hailing from Belgium originally, Alÿs came to Mexico City in the 80’s as an architect seeking work after 1985 earthquake. His choice to reside in Mexico clearly left an impression on him as a young artist and ideas of crisis, provocation, satire, and social constructs create the foundation he builds on. This survey is a mixture of drawings, small paintings, short films and projection installations done mostly after 1990. The first thing that caught my eye was his process – though he was trained as an architect Alÿs, thinks more like a conceptual video artist originally trained as an illustrator. All the preparatory work removed the magic of the content, never allowing the viewer to fully be swept up, but on the other hand it highlights the fundamentally constructed nature of our society. That said, there is no denying the elegance in some of his finished pieces.

Still from Alÿs’ When Faith Moves Mountains

One such example is When Faith Moves Mountains, one of the central pieces in the show. It is a film documenting a performance in which Alÿs recruited 500 volunteers to move an enormous sand dune in the Peruvian desert by shoveling in unison. In the same breath he succeeds in showing us the futility and existential meaninglessness that accompanies grand undertakings while tempering it with the authentic determination of the volunteers realizing his vision. He underscores this theme in another piece where he pushes a block of ice through the hot streets of Mexico City until it is reduced into an ice cube. It seems we will never truly know his agenda.

Still from Alÿs’ Re-enactments

In another film he carries a handgun through the streets of Mexico City, until he is eventually arrested. As you continue to watch, Alÿs repeats – or rather reenacts – the piece but with approval of the authorities. Is Alÿs selling out or is flaunting his role as artist? We are deceived again.

By Holly Ann Sailors (MFA 2012)

Its 3:50 am. I am thinking about painting. The birds are beginning to chirp, and the brilliant sun is peeking over the edges of gutters scaffolding, and bricks. I lay here, watching the warm violet light turn to cobalt blue. The sky gracefully transitions into a warm yellow stream of light exposing the texture of the giant oil stains on the 15-foot ceiling of my studio. The dark rich sienna abstraction converses with my artwork, layers of soot reminiscent of a landscape.
 

Oil Stained Ceiling



Metallic Chipping in Leipzig

German artist Gerhard Richter said that “Perhaps the Doors, Curtains, Surface Pictures, Panes of Glass, etc. are metaphors of despair, prompted by the dilemma that our sense of sight causes us to apprehend things, but at the same time restricts and partly precludes our apprehension of reality.â€


Leipzig Canal Decomposition

Artistic Expression and remnants of Political destruction exist simultaneously here. Walls have been painted in a failed attempt to cover graffiti. Paintings are growing and curling their way out of concrete walls. Close examination exposes the cracks and layers of the human hand. The streets show a physical manifestation of political and artistic turmoil. Years of creative oppression and frustration can be seen in the doors, walls, and decomposed structures.



Grafitti and Gum, Berlin Wall

 

Rusted



Continued from the last post:

Delayed gratification. This concept I find applies to a lot of the random happenings of ones life. I’m starting to realize that in a painting patience really pays off. I, the school trained artist, was built to create a painting in a week to turn in and talk about the following day. The same twenty minute breath used to describe a slide of a painting created before my time was awarded to paintings of my academic experience with the same care. I would think to myself, “Wow we spent twenty minutes talking about something I put together the night before, and I didn’t even think about it.†Bullshit. Today I find the painting process is slowing down drastically. Proper technique and color relationships to convey the message an artist wants to present to the viewer drastically slows down the process these days. I think before showing other people work, and in the event it doesn’t look like care and great thought went into the painting I pass it off as just a sketch. In the paintings I try to do now each stroke has to have a story or a part of the story. I think of it as writing a paper where each stroke is a line from the text so that if one were to isolate each brush stroke and put them next to each other to form a page they would be able to read my unique story. This delayed reaction will one day be helpful in marriage. As a man I am beginning to understand that many women enjoy the Eric experience when I have a “delayed reaction.†I have begun this mode of talking myself through a painting before I start painting. It cuts down the frustration. I will admit I haven’t been able to paint nearly as much as I would like to. There aren’t enough hours in the day. The children and young adults I teach during the day need to be fed education. I need to sleep. Women need to be smiled at and told day-changing comments such as “love those shoes†and “you have the most paint-able face; here’s my card, I’m an artist.†How do I balance this life? I haven’t. I have neither rhyme nor reason to the madness of trying to be an artist and hold a 9-5 job. I am not ashamed to admit this in hopes that someone will one day sit next to me, gently stroke my turpenoid-stained hands and calmly whisper, “Me too.â€

To be continued…