vertical_align_top

Francis Alÿs

(1959-)
Belgian artist
more_vert
favorite

About

edit

Francis Alÿs (born 1959, Antwerp) is a Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist. His work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, architecture, and social practice. After leaving behind his formal training as an architect and relocating to Mexico City, he has created a diverse body of artwork and performance art that explores urbanity, spatial justice, and land-based poetics. Employing a broad range of media from painting to performance, his works examine the tension between politics and poetics, individual action and impotence. Alÿs commonly enacts paseos—walks that resist the subjection of common space. Alys reconfigures time to the speed of a stroll, making reference to the figure of the flâneur, originating from the work of Charles Baudelaire and developed by Walter Benjamin. Cyclical repetition and return also inform the character of Alÿs’ movements and mythology—Alÿs contrasts geological and technological time through land-based and social practice that examine individual memory and collective mythology. Alÿs frequently engages rumor as a central theme in his practice, disseminating ephemeral, practice-based works through word-of-mouth and storytelling.

Key details

edit section
Born
1959 (age 66)
Antwerp
Zodiac
Tags Add tag

Partner

edit

Family members

add
Please set Gender for this person to allow access to this feature.

Romantic interests

add
Partner's name
Relationship type
Relationship status
Relationship start date
+add end date
   to      close
You can enter many date formats here (e.g. 2009, Jan 2009, October 2011, 1 Feb 2009, 4/4/2012, etc)
Description
Relationship sources (on the internet)
close
Rumor only

Friends & associates

add
Please set Gender for this person to allow access to this feature.

Scholars

expand_more
0
Please be the first to contribute to this page!

Missing information for Francis Alÿs

edit

Activity

expand_more
0
Community menu
  • Edit
  • Websites
Couplepedia · about
terms of use · copyright · privacy
loaded in 0.09 secs
arrow_drop_down
photo_library