Francis Alÿs

ACTIVE BACKLIST

FRANCIS ALÿS: IN A GIVEN SITUATION
Text by Cuauhtémoc Medina, Alfonso Reyes, Ton Marar.
COSAC NAIFY
ISBN: 9788575039427 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 3/31/2011
Active | Awaiting stock

FRANCIS ALÿS: POSTCARDS
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
ISBN: 9780870707995 | US $12.95
Pub Date: 11/30/2010
Active | Not available

FRANCIS ALÿS: LE TEMPS DU SOMMEIL
Afterword by Enrique Juncosa.
CHARTA/IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
ISBN: 9788881587773 | US $49.95
Pub Date: 9/30/2010
Active | In stock

FRANCIS ALÿS: A STORY OF DECEPTION
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
ISBN: 9780870707902 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 8/31/2010
Active | In stock

FRANCIS ALÿS: THE HISTORIC CENTER OF MEXICO CITY
Edited by Carlos Monsivis.
TURNER/MACBA
ISBN: 9788475067193 | US $24.00
Pub Date: 3/1/2006
Active | Awaiting stock

PARKETT NO. 69 FRANCIS ALYS, ISA GENZKEN, ANISH KAPOOR
Artwork by Francis Als, Isa Genzken, Anish Kapoor.
PARKETT
ISBN: 9783907582190 | US $32.00
Pub Date: 1/2/2004
Active | In stock

FRANCIS ALÿS: THE MODERN PROCESSION
PUBLIC ART FUND
ISBN: 9780960848829 | US $24.95
Pub Date: 7/2/2003
Active | Awaiting stock

FRANCIS ALÿS: THE PROPHET AND THE FLY
Artwork by Francis Als. Edited by Catherine Lampert. Text by D. H. Lawrence, Plato.
TURNER
ISBN: 9788475065793 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 6/2/2003
Active | Awaiting stock

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

FRANCIS ALÿS: BLUE ORANGE 2004
Artwork by Francis Als.
WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
ISBN: 9783883758664 | US $22.00
Pub Date: 3/15/2005
Out of print | Not available

FRANCIS ALÿS: WHEN FAITH CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS
TURNER
ISBN: 9788475066394 | US $29.95
Pub Date: 5/15/2005
Out of print | Not available

FRANCIS ALÿS: WALKING DISTANCE FROM THE STUDIO
Essay by Annelie Lütgens. Interview by Corinne Diserens. Preface by Gijs van Tuyl.
HATJE CANTZ PUBLISHERS
ISBN: 9783775715416 | US $39.95
Pub Date: 2/15/2005
Out of print | Not available

Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs: In a Given Situation

Text by Cuauhtémoc Medina, Alfonso Reyes, Ton Marar.
Published by Cosac Naify

For the past ten years, video camera in hand, Francis Alÿs has chased tornados in the highlands south of Mexico City, hoping to access and film the literal eye of the storm. This volume, full of scrapbook and ephemera appeal, compiles Alÿs' notes, drawings, paintings, press clippings and writings for his film Tornado.

Francis Alÿs: Postcards

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Over the past two decades, Francis Alÿs (born 1959) has used postcards to record his work and broadcast his ideas. Twenty-six postcards are gathered together in this affordable artist's book, both a collectible object in its own right and a succinct introduction to Alÿs' career.

Francis Alÿs: Le Temps du Sommeil

Afterword by Enrique Juncosa.
Published by Charta/Irish Museum of Modern Art

The Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs (born 1959) is known for his walks and tales executed in a wide range of media (documentary film, painting, photography, performance, video and installation) that marry humor and sensitivity, banality and spontaneity, personal and political. A compulsive wanderer, many of his works involve intense observation and recording of the social, cultural and economic conditions of urban life. This beautifully designed volume presents an ongoing series of paintings that function as kind of a storyboard and archive of the artist's oeuvre to date. Begun in 1996, Le Temps du Sommeil ("The Time of Sleep") comprises over 100 paintings accompanied by instructions and postcards related--sometimes obliquely--to the artist's past performative actions. The instructions and paintings are presented en face, giving birth to a text-image dialogue that is sometimes witty and always fascinating. Le Temps du Sommeil affirms Alÿs yet again as an artist always able to surprise.

Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception

Edited by Mark Godfrey, Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Eduardo Abaroa, Klaus Biesenbach, Francesco Careri, Carla Faesler, Mark Godfrey, Boris Groys, Miwon Kwon, Tom McDonough, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Laymert Garcia dos Santos, Eyal Weizman.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Working in a variety of media and a range of scales, from humble works on paper to monumental staged performances, Francis Alÿs (born 1959) has established himself as one of the world's leading contemporary artists. Based in Mexico City since 1986, the artist fashions much of his work from the street life he observes during long walks throughout the city. Bringing together a variety of participants, from Mexican sign-painters to British Guardsmen, his collaborations have produced several well-known works, including "When Faith Moves Mountains" (2002), in which he enlisted 500 volunteers to attempt to move a sand dune one foot from its original position using shovels, and "The Modern Procession" (2002), a ceremonial procession commemorating MoMA's temporary move to Queens, New York, that included a brass band and uniformed participants carrying reproductions of the Museum's most famous works across the Queensboro bridge. Published to accompany the largest retrospective of Alÿs' work to date, this publication is more a guidebook than a conventional monograph, reflecting the spirit of the artist's wandering practice. It features an introductory essay by Mark Godfrey, a curator at the Tate Modern, an index of quotes from Alÿs' previous writings and interviews compiled by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, and descriptions of works written by Alÿs and Cuauhtémoc Medina, freelance curator and art critic, as well as responses to the artist's work from a wide range of critics and commentators.

Francis Alÿs: The Historic Center of Mexico City

Edited by Carlos Monsivis.
Published by Turner/MACBA

This visual travelogue of one of the biggest cities of the twenty-first century takes readers through the architecture and neighborhoods at its heart. Francis Als, a Belgian artist with a studio in Mexico City's title historic center, loves to wander, and to record what he sees in photography, videos, slides, drawings and paintings. Walking Distance from the Studio is, in his own words, "everything that I saw, heard, did or undid, understood or misunderstood, within a perimeter of ten blocks around my studio in the centro historico." Through all of this, Als remains an outsider and foreigner--his detachment lets him see and relay everyday things in new, poetic and often surprising ways.

Francis Alÿs: Blue Orange 2004

Artwork by Francis Als.
Published by Walther König, Köln

In 2004, the highest endowed all-European art prize, blueOrange, was awarded to Francis Alÿs for his newest sound-image projection, Blue Orange 2004--which focused on the phenomenon of time. Also documented here are the artist's recent works, among them 90 small oil paintings on wood entitled Le Temps du Sommeil. Als works in various media such as performance, drawing, photo sequences, video as well as figurative painting.

Francis Alÿs: When Faith Can Move Mountains

Edited by Cuauhtémoc Medina. Essays by Lynne Cooke, Susan Buck-Morss, Gustavo Buntinx, Lucy Lippard, Gerardo Mosquera and Corinne Diserens.
Published by Turner

As essayist Cuauhtémoc Medina puts it, “A desperate situation requires an absurd solution.” On April 11, 2002, 500 volunteers (mostly students from the University of Lima) were supplied with shovels and asked to form a single line at the foot of a giant sand dune in Ventanilla, an area outside of Lima. This human comb moved the 1600-foot-long sand dune about four inches from its original position. When Faith Can Move Mountains attempts to translate social tensions into narratives that in turn intervene in the imaginary landscape of a place. Instead of following the classic model of an artist or exhibition catalogue, this book focuses on the conjunction between the social and historical conditions that the work appropriated, and the metaphoric analysis that the intervention put in motion. Through images (such as photos of the event and drawings for the project) and text (including letters and documents of the intervention) this publication, reminiscent of a science book, narrates the facts and concepts of the work.

Francis Alÿs: Walking Distance From The Studio

Essay by Annelie Lütgens. Interview by Corinne Diserens. Preface by Gijs van Tuyl.
Published by Hatje Cantz Publishers

The ephemeral--the temporary, fleeting character of life--is a central principle in the art of Francis Als, the Belgian-born artist who currently resides in Mexico. He conceives his works in his own immediate surroundings--on walks through the streets of Mexico City. Working in the traditions of Fluxus and the Situationalists, he is captivated by such images as a wind-blown plastic bag, or sleeping homeless peoples, or the wandering shadow of a flag pole on the Plaza Major. Als's explorations of public space and social conditions in Mexico City are the primary focus of this lavisly illustrated publication that features the artist's Ambulantes (1992-2002), a slide series devoted to the itinerant street merchants of the Mexican megacity. The book also offers a current survey of his subversive, often politically-motivated work.

Parkett No. 69 Francis Alys, Isa Genzken, Anish Kapoor

Artwork by Francis Als, Isa Genzken, Anish Kapoor.
Published by Parkett

For Parkett No. 69, the featured collaboration artists are Belgian conceptual artist Francis Alÿs, German sculptor and mixed-media artist Isa Genzken, and the Indian-born, London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor. Authors include Saul Anton, Robert Storr, and Kitty Scott on Als; Pamela Lee and Jörg Heiser on Genzken, and an interview with Genzken by Michael Krajewski; and Norman Bryson, Marina Warner and Kurt Forster on Kapoor. Other features include Philip Kaiser on Amelie von Wulffen, Stuart Comer on Swetlana Heger and a special Parkett Inquiry on consensus in contemporary art world titled “The Economy of Attention.” The twentieth-anniversary issue, Parkett No. 70, will be published in summer 2004, with special collaborations and projects to be announced.

Francis Alÿs: The Modern Procession

Artwork by Francis Als. Edited by Anne Wehr. Contributions by Tom Eccles, Susan Freedman. Text by Harper Montgomery, Francesco Pellizi, RoseLee Goldberg.
Published by Public Art Fund

On the morning of Sunday, June 23, 2002, 100 participants gathered at The Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan, along with a 12-person Peruvian brass band, and a horse, dogs, and numerous palanquins, atop which sat replicas of three masterpieces from the museum's collection--Picasso's “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,” Duchamp's ready-made “Bicycle Wheel” and a Giacometti--and a living representative of contemporary art, Kiki Smith. Three hours later they ended their procession at the museum's new temporary home, in Queens. Along the way, which ran from 11 West 53 Street, over the Queensboro Bridge, and up Queens Boulevard, the procession absorbed 100 additional participants, and enacted a very public spectacle--part saint's day procession and part secular celebration--of the museum's historic move to MoMA QNS.

Francis Alÿs: The Prophet and the Fly

Artwork by Francis Als. Edited by Catherine Lampert. Text by D. H. Lawrence, Plato.
Published by Turner

This unique volume side-steps the performance work for which Francis Alÿs is most recently recognized, presenting instead his recent paintings and drawings. Over 30 beautiful, encaustic-layered canvases illustrate passages from D.H. Lawrence, Plato, and other great writers, and, in a fluid exchange, are likewise illuminated by them. Als entered the art field by accident, through what he calls “a coincidence of geographical, personal and legal matters [that] resulted in indefinite vacations which, through a mixture of boredom, curiosity and vanity, led to my present profession.” A compulsive wanderer, his personal explorations of the cities in which he finds himself have formed the basis for an eclectic body of work that has involved the varied mediums of documentary film and photography, video, painting and performance, each put to work in a way that reflects specific social and economic conditions in a highly individual style. A close observer and occasional manipulator of the quirks of everyday life, Alÿs responds to fleeting and contingent circumstances from the viewpoint of a passerby who is both involved and separate.