Francis Alÿs was born in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium, and currently lives in Mexico City.

His projects include Paradox of Praxis, in which the artist pushed a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it melted, and When Faith Moves Mountains, in which 500 people at Ventanilla — outside Lima, Peru — moved a giant sand dune four inches using shovels. In 2005, he performed Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic (pictured), in which he walked the perimeter of the area of Jerusalem that was ceded to Israeli control in the peace agreement that ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and re-drew the original "Green Line" using green house paint.

His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford (2002), the Lisson Gallery in London (1999 and 2001), Galerie Peter Kilchmann in Zurich (1999 and 2001), the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver (1998), and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (1997). He has also shown in group exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York (2002), the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London (all 2001), and Hayward Gallery in London (1999).

Francis Alÿs is currently showing at the Renaissance Society in Chicago. Click here to read our listing.

Francis Alÿs
In collaboration with Julien Devaux, Philippe Bellaiche, and Rachel Leah Jones
SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POETIC CAN BECOME POLITICAL
AND
SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POLITICAL CAN BECOME POETIC, 2005
Still from video projection
© Francis Alÿs
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York

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