Film UbuWebFrancis Alÿs (1959)
When Faith Moves Mountains (2002) The Politics of Rehearsal [AKA Ensayo 2, 2005] (2005)
Francis Alÿs was born in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium, and currently lives in Mexico City. His projects include Paradox of Praxis (1997), for which the artist pushed a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it melted, and, most recently, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), in which 500 people at Ventanilla, outside Lima, Peru, formed a single line at the foot of a giant sand dune and moved it four inches using shovels. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford (2002), the Lisson Gallery in London (1999 and 2001), the Galerie Peter Kilchmann in Zurich (1999 and 2001), the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver (1998), and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (1997). He has also shown in group exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York (2002), the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Witte de With center for contemporary art in Rotterdam, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London (all 2001), and the Hayward Gallery in London (1999), among many others.