Description

Published to accompany the major Francis Alÿs exhibition at the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne in 2021, this reference monograph focuses on some of the key motifs and characteristics of the Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist: his innovative 30-year video practice; the importance of walking and strolling to his artistic method; his interest in children's games, which he has filmed in various countries since 1999, is reflected in Alÿs's work, which proposes a poetics of space through brief narratives whose subtlety and precision invite access for the general public.
While his work questions the link between artistic expression and political intervention, the artist always works through allusion, with remarkable precision and economy of means, preferring poetic polysemy to direct political commentary, and favoring the fusion of planned imaginary spaces with his own fictional ones. The publication also focuses on Reel-Unreel, one of Alÿs's major projects carried out in Afghanistan, which comprises children's games and hand-drawn animation loops, as well as paintings and graphic works, and the eponymous video Reel-Unreel (2011).

Edited and introduced by MCBA Lausanne curator Nicole Schweizer, the book features full essays by Julia Bryan-Wilson, professor of Art History, University of California, Berkeley; Luis Pérez-Oramas, independent curator and writer, New York; and Judith Rodenbeck, associate professor, Department of Media and Cultural Studies, University of California Riverside, and is lavishly illustrated.

Published with the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, on the occasion of the exhibition Francis Alÿs: As Long as I'm Walking , 15 October 2021–16 January 2022.

Editor
Nicole Schweizer

Technical specifications
Edited by: JRP | Ringier
Year: 2021
Type: Book
Binding: Paperback
Dimensions: 24 x 29 cm
Weight: 940 gr
Language: English
Pages: 160
ISBN: 978-3-03764-572-7