Friday, August 21, 2009

Francis Alÿs


Still from "Paradox of Praxis 1" (1997)

Still from "Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic" (2005)

Francis Alÿs' video "Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic" (2005) was screened on Wednesday at the Beirut Art Center, as part of a film program curated by New Yorker, Beth Stryker.

For his film Alÿs recreated Jerusalem’s Green Line, originally drawn by Moshe Dayan on a map with a green pencil in 1948.

The film shows
Alÿs whilst carrying a leaking tin of green paint along the Green Line. As Jim Quilty has noted, Alÿs was carrying a small tin, so he had to refill it every 200-300 meters. While Alÿs and his paint dribble attracted the odd perplexed glance from passing pedestrians, the nearby Israeli security services didn't seem bothered.

Alÿs also showed the film to numerous activists and intellectuals including from Israel and Palestine, and recorded their comments. In addition to showing the video of Alÿs performance, Stryker also showed the video of the commentaries by three respondents: the
Palestinian anthropologist, the Beir Zeit University professor Rima Hemami and the dissident Israeli architect Eyal Weizman.

Regarding "
Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic" Alÿs has stated: Can an artistic intervention truly bring about an unforeseen way of thinking, or it is more a matter of creating a sensation of "meaninglessness" that shows the absurdity of the situation? Can an artistic intervention translate social tensions into narratives that in turn intervene in the imaginary landscape of a place? Can an absurd act provoke a transgression that makes you abandon the standard assumptions on the sources of conflict? Can those kinds of artistic acts bring about the possibility of change? In any case, how can art remain politically significant without assuming a doctrinal standpoint or aspiring to become social activism? For the moment, I am exploring the following axiom: Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic.

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