Francis Alÿs: Seven Walks
September - November 2005
21 Portman Square, London W1 and the National Portrait Gallery, London WC2
Subsequent presentations include July - 4 September 2011 as part of
Projections: Works from The Artangel Collection, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
[Details]
“A journey implies a destination, so many miles to be consumed, while a walk is its own measure, complete at every point along the way.” Francis Alÿs
Francis Alÿs walks a lot. He walks the streets of the world’s largest metropolis, Mexico City, where he has made his home for almost twenty years. He has also walked the streets of Copenhagen, Sao Paulo, Jerusalem and London. Observing and intervening in this huge open-air studio, Alÿs maps the city, staging elusive scenarios and making poetic films and animations. His work can be as monumental as moving an immense sand dune (a project he undertook with five hundred people in Lima, Peru), as ephemeral as sending a postcard or as subtly humorous as having a peacock take Alÿs' place at an important gathering of his peers.
Over a span of five years, Alÿs walked the streets of London, evolving Seven Walks for Artangel, a project which delved into the everyday rituals and habits of the metropolis. The walks were enacted in different parts of the city – Hyde Park, the City of London, the National Portrait Gallery, the streets close to Regents Park. Three of the walks – Guards, The Nightwatch and Railings – were made with Alÿs’s long-term collaborator Rafael Ortega. The ensuing films, videos, paintings and drawings were presented together in Alÿs’s first major public presentation in Britain.
Guards
follows sixty-four individual Coldstream Guards as they move through the Square Mile of London.
Shady/Sunny consists of a walk in South East London on the sunny side of the street always and a walk in South East London on the shady side of the street always.
In The Commuters a painting is hung on a wall of the entrance hall in a house situated in Portman Square, No. 21. At 7:00 PM, a chosen carrier takes the painting off the wall. He brings the painting back to his home by walking or taking whatever means of transport he would normally use…
Railings explores the rhythmic possibilities afforded by a characteristic feature of Regency London.
In Ice4Milk slide images of a large block of ice being pushed through the streets of Mexico City are juxtaposed with the morning delivery of milk bottles to London doorsteps.
The Nightwatch uses surveillance cameras to observe a fox exploring the Tudor and Georgian rooms of the National Portrait Gallery at night.
Pebble Walk is Alÿs’s postcard homage to Richard Long, based on a walk Alÿs took through Hyde Park in 1999.
Seven Walks was presented within two distinctive London buildings. Drawings, paintings, photographs and videos were presented within the faded grandeur of one of the great neo-classical buildings on Portman Square, which was designed by James Adam in the late eighteenth century. The Nightwatch was presented in the Main Hall of the National Portrait Gallery.
Seven Walks is included in The Artangel Collection.
Seven walks was supported by Bloomberg
The production and presentation of individual walks have been made possible through the generous support of anonymous Angels, The Outset Contemporary Art Fund (Guards), The Felix Trust for Art (Railings) and The Moose Foundation for the Arts and Mary Moore (The Nightwatch).
With thanks to The Portman Estate and Godfrey Vaughan for making available 21 Portman Square and The Elephant Trust for supporting the initial research and development of the project. Thanks also to the Lisson Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Seven Walks, the publication, was supported by The Henry Moore Foundation and the Robbins Foundation.
This project was supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels and The Company of Angels
