Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs uses public actions, video, painting, installation, and drawing to articulate the bifurcations and boundaries imposed by politics and culture on society. His analysis of social structure is influenced by his prior background as an architect. A sense of urgency pervades all Alÿs’s work as he comments on struggles of power and identity. For Alÿs, local concerns are global concerns and vice versa.

A major survey of his work, “Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception,” was on view from 2010–2011 at the Tate Modern, London; Wiels Centre d'Art Contemporain, Brussels; and the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 in New York. He has been the subject of solo shows at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2010); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2008); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2007); and was featured in dOCUMENTA (13) (2012). He is represented by David Zwirner in New York and Peter Kilchmann Gallery in Zurich, Switzerland.