Francis Alÿs
Miradores, 2008; Untitled, 1998-2003

Francis Alÿs, Miradores, 2008, Private collection
Francis Alÿs' (*1959, Antwerp, BE) artistic practice combining video, photography, performance drawing and painting centres on the ephemeral, the situational and the everyday.
Francis Alÿs – audio guide in plain language
The two-channel video work Miradores is part of the multimedia project Don't Cross the Bridge Before you Get to the River, realized between 2005 and 2009. The group of works plays with the poetic utopia of building a bridge between two politically separated national borders and touches on related issues like the freedom of movement and its restrictions. Miradores features two perspectives on the Strait of Gibraltar: both in Tangier, Morocco and Tarifa, Spain you can see people looking across the strait to the other side. The lively atmosphere, the sound of the waves and the impending sunset highlight parallels and thus the possibility of alliances.
The video is complemented by two wall works from the Sign Painting Project, which Alÿs carried out over several years together with professional billboard painters from Mexico City by asking them to enlarge and reinterpret motifs from his small-format oil paintings. Alÿs then produced new versions of his paintings, reflecting modes of collective art production.