Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1959. After studying Architecture at the Institut Supérieur d’Architecture Saint-Luc in Tournai in 1983, he continued his studies at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia in 1986. He later moved to Mexico City, where he currently lives and works. It was there that he began dedicating himself first to sculpture, then to painting, and eventually to a broader investigation of the city and its aesthetic and social dimensions, which led him to employ a wide range of expressive media, including performance, video, drawing, and photography. In the mid-1990s he gained international recognition through his “walks,” actions later documented through videos, photographs, and drawings, inspired by the culture of the paseo—the act of walking without a destination, following improvised routes that allow the gaze to appropriate urban spaces and observe the world with curiosity. Although he is widely known for his performative actions, painting plays a central role in his artistic practice. The works belonging to the Iannaccone Collection— all included in the exhibition—significantly represent this aspect of his production. Particularly representative of his investigation into the reproduction of the image are Untitled (Study for Painting and Punishment) (2000–2003) and Untitled (Man/Woman with Shoe on Head) (1995), two diptychs with uneven proportions that reflect on visual perception and on the meaning of the image itself.