Francis Alÿs, Paradox of Praxis 5: Sometimes we dream as we live & sometimes we live as we dream Ciudad Juárez, México (2013), via David Zwirner

This month, Francis Alÿs returns to London for his first exhibition in the city in over 15 years, opening his third exhibition of work with David Zwirner Gallery.  Focusing on the intense political history and narco-violence that has plagued the North Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez for over a decade, the artist’s particular investigative style leaves the experience of this corruption and murder-torn border town distinctly inconclusive, a point that only contributes to the already tragic nature of its story.

Francis Alÿs, Untitled (2013), via David Zwirner

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Francis Alÿs, REEL-UNREEL (2011), via David Zwirner

In REEL-UNREEL, the recently completed film by Belgian artist Francis Alÿs, two Afghan boys race through the streets of Kabul, dodging traffic, pedestrians, and other children while military helicopters fly overhead.  Mimicking a game hoop-rolling, they push two large film canisters, a trail of film spilling out behind them as they go.  Winding through the streets and up into the hills of the Afghani capital, the reels of film take their fair share of abuse as they are dragged through dirt, puddles, and even a small fire before being mistakenly rolled straight off a cliff. (more…)

Since the early 1990s, Rineke Dijkstra has been creating photographic and cinematic portraits that expose, examine, and celebrate humanity. It is a rare occurrence when one bears witness to the complexities and nuances of life epitomized in a fleeting gesture or facial expression. It is even more rare to capture these gestures or expressions on camera. Dijkstra’s work is devoted to a fascination with these possibilities found within the miracle of physical embodiment.

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Five Dutch and Belgium museums, The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, MHKA in Antwerp, Gemeentemuseum The Hague, De Pont in Tilburg, and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, have collaborated to release an online video channel, ARTtube, featuring films about art and design and interviews with artists.

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Fridericianum in Kassel via dOCUMENTA

Every five years, the city of Kassel in Germany plays host to dOCUMENTA, a colossal, 100-day long exhibition of contemporary art from all over the world.  Participating artists are provided at least two years to complete their work and the results are thus consistently thorough and complex.  This year is dOCUMENTA’s thirteenth edition and is expected to attract more than 750,000 visitors, nearly twice that of last year’s Venice Biennale.

Yan Lei‘s  “Limited Art Project”, a room of works completed daily over the past year.  The room and the art hung on its walls will be sprayed over with car paint, retransforming every piece into a blank canvas.  This image is featured on BBC News’ Big Picture series.

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Francis Alÿs, Modern Procession (2002), via PS1

Initiated in collaboration with, and previously presented at, Tate Modern, London and WIELS Centre of Contemporary Art, Brussels, Francis Alÿs’s survey show entitled ‘Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception’ is now on view through August 1 at both MoMA and MoMA PS1. Largely drawing upon MoMA’s collection of works from the Belgium-born artist and grouped around three recent acquisitions—Re-enactments (2001), When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), and Rehearsal I (Ensayo I) (1999–2001)—the New York iteration of ‘Franicis Alÿs: A Story of Deception’ brings together a sizeable amount of the artist’s works, which characteristically emphasize performance and repetition with results that range from absurd to stunning.

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Lawrence Weiner, At a Distance to the Foreground (1999). All images Nicolas Linnert for Art Observed.

Closing this week is Paula Cooper Gallery’s group exhibition Locations, a showcase of work by fifteen artists involving mapping and locality. At a moment when art and its surrounding socioeconomic structure have moved steadily to occupy a global, deterritorialized sphere, this arrangement of works is distinctive in its look back to a mid-century Modernist practice regarding spatial surroundings.

Installation view at Paula Cooper Gallery.

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Tornado (2000-2010) by Francis Alÿs, via inglebygallery

Currently showing at the Tate Modern in London until September 5, 2010, is a series of works by artist Francis Alÿs. Alÿs is famous for sacrificing his own comfort and health for the sake of art, as he does with his “Tornado” video (2000-10) on display at the Tate. A still of this video serves as the picture on the museum’s banner of the exhibit, entitled Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception. The picture shows a man, bent against the wind and obscured by dust, essaying to reach the center of the storm. This footage was collected over the course of a decade, as Alÿs struggled both to keep his cameras intact (he reportedly lost six) and to capture the sense of “adrenaline” that he craved. While many works are videos, other media are included, such as paintings.

Re-enactments (2000) by Francis Alÿs, via Tate

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