Francis Als: Politics of Rehearsal

Francis Als: Politics of Rehearsal

Russell Ferguson

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Steidl

This publication accompanies the exhibition Francis

Als: Politics of Rehearsal, organized by Russell Ferguson
and presented at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles,
30 September 200720 February 2008.
Francis Als: Politics of Rehearsal has been generously
supported by Fundacin/Coleccin Jumex and Heidi and
Erik Murkoff. Additional support has been provided by
the Peter Norton Family Foundation and the David Teiger
Curatorial Travel Fund.
All works courtesy of David Zwirner, New York.
Copy-edited by Jane Hyun
Designed by Lorraine Wild and Leslie Sun,
Green Dragon Office, Los Angeles
Printed by Steidl, Gttingen, Germany
Copublished by the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire
Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90024; and Steidl,
Dstere Strasse 4, 37073 Gttingen, Germany
The Hammer Museum is operated by the University of
California, Los Angeles. Occidental Petroleum Corporation
has partially endowed the Museum and constructed the
Occidental Petroleum Cultural Center Building, which
houses the museum.
Copyright 2007 by the Regents of the University
of California.

Directors Foreword

Acknowledgments

Francis Als: Politics of Rehearsal

11

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

in any form by any electronic or mechanical means
(including photocopying, recording, and information
storage or retrieval) without permission in writing from
the publisher.

Russell Ferguson
ISBN 978-0-943739-32-8

frontispiece: study for Rehearsal, 2007

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007931757

DVD (back cover):
Printed and bound in Germany

Politics of Rehearsal, 2007

Video
30 minutes
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York

Selected Exhibition History and Bibliography

125

directors foreword
It is a great pleasure to bring the work of Francis Als to the Hammer Museum. There is no
doubt about the importance of his projects, or the extent of his influence. While everything
Als creates has a simplicity that makes it instantly accessible, his work also offers a complexity that continues to resonate long after it has first been seen.
This exhibitions framework of rehearsal and related themes evolved from many conversations between the artist and Russell Ferguson, adjunct curator at the Hammer
Museum, over several years. To date, exhibitions of Alss work have emphasized issues of
place, particularly connections to Mexico City, his adopted home. In contrast, Francis Als:
Politics of Rehearsal focuses on concepts of rehearsal and repetition, failure and success,
storytelling and performance. The exhibition and this publication explore how these ideas
inform his varied practice, and how they reflect in particular the imposition of a certain
concept of modernity onto Mexican and Latin American cultures.
Over a number of years, Als has developed an approach to his art that has focused
less on definitive conclusions and more on strategies of repetition. This has resulted in the
creation of a group of works that can be brought together around the idea of rehearsal.
This is by its very nature an open-ended process that always remains profoundly open to
the emergence of new incarnations for each project. Key elements retain the possibility
of being changed. Even the works in this exhibition that have been seen before are subject
to reconfiguration by the artist for new spaces and new contexts.
Our sincere thanks go to Eugenio Lopez and the Fundacin/Coleccin Jumex as well
as Heidi and Erik Murkoff for their generous support of this project. In addition, I extend our
gratitude to the Peter Norton Family Foundation and the David Teiger Curatorial Travel
Fund, which also made the exhibition possible.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to Russell Ferguson. Russell was chief curator at
the Hammer until earlier this year, when he became chair of the Department of Art at the
University of California, Los Angeles. As was the case with the exhibitions he previously
organized for the museum on the work of Christian Marclay and Wolfgang Tillmans, this is
the first major museum show in the United States of the oeuvre of a highly influential
artist. I am thrilled that he will continue to organize thoughtful and significant exhibitions
such as these for the Hammer Museum.
Ann Philbin

Study for Dj Vu, 1996

Oil on tracing paper on cardboard
7 1 2 6 3 8 inches

acknowledgments

Many people were instrumental in helping to bring this exhibition to fruition, and I offer my

OBrien, Becky Perez, Janine Perron, Maggie Sarkissian and her staff, Mary Ann Sears,

sincerest thanks to everyone involved with the project.

Deborah Snyder, Sally Suchil, and Billy Taylor, and Kate Temple.

Without funding from generous donors, the exhibition would not have been able to

This book looks as good as it does thanks to my longtime collaborators at Green

move forward. I join Ann Philbin in thanking Eugenio Lopez and the Fundacin/Coleccin

Dragon Office. My deepest thanks go to Lorraine Wild and Leslie Sun for their dedication

Jumex, longtime supporters of Francis Alss work, as well as Heidi and Erik Murkoff for

to the project. Jane Hyun copy-edited the book with her usual care and skill. I am also

their generous support of this project. In addition, I extend our gratitude to the Peter

grateful to Gerhard Steidl and his team, the publishers and printers of the book.

Norton Family Foundation and to David Teiger for making this exhibition possible. Their
generosity is deeply appreciated.
My colleagues at the Hammer Museum deserve enormous thanks. Ann Philbin,

The staff of David Zwirner, New York, was extremely generous with their help in all
aspects of the catalogue and exhibition. Their commitment to Alss work is evident and
deeply appreciated. Bellatrix Hubert was extraordinarily helpful to me throughout the pro-

director, provides continued passion and support for challenging exhibitions at the

cess, and I also sincerely thank David Zwirner, Angela Choon, Amy Davila, Susan Sherrick,

Hammer. I am also thankful for the support of my curatorial collegues Gary Garrels, James

Donna Chu, Julia Joern, and Wendy White. I would also like to thank Peter Kilchmann of

Elaine, Ali Subotnick, Cindy Burlingham, Allegra Pesenti, and David Rodes, a dynamic

Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.

group of people with whom it is a pleasure to work.

Jene Misraje, exhibition coordinator, has handled myriad details connected with

I thank my new colleagues in the Art Department at UCLA for all of their support,
especially James Welling, Caroline McNeil, Caron Cronin, Rajpal Matharu, Joli Kishi, and

the organization of the exhibition. Curatorial Assistant Claire de Dobay Rifelj provided

Khadijah Rashid. Mieke Marple also volunteered valuable help with my research at a cru-

invaluable help in countless ways with both the exhibition and this book. And without the

cial moment in the writing of my text.

constant support of administrative assistant Emily Gonzalez, I cannot even imagine having
been able to complete this project.
Jennifer Wells Green, director of development, worked to secure funding for the
exhibition with her usual tirelessness, along with her staff Megan Kissinger, Alison Perchuk,
David Morehouse, and Laura Sils. The communications department headed by Miranda

Rafael Ortega was Alss collaborator on many of the works shown here. He was
more than generous with his time on my visits to Mexico City and was also willing to lend us
his indispensible expertise on technical aspects of the installation. I very much appreciate
his help.
In addition, I would like to thank Brian Butler, Lynne Cooke, Agustn Coppel, Alfonso

Carroll, with assistance from Sarah Stifler, Morgan Kroll, Julia Luke, and Keith Bormuth, did

Cornejo, Michael Darling, Julien Devaux, Mireya Escalante, Craig Garrett, Alejandro

excellent work in publicizing the exhibition. James Bewley, director of public programs,

Gonzlez Irritu, Bob Gunderman, Lucero Gutierrez, Yuko Hasegawa, Karin Higa, Frances

along with Aimee Chang, Cole Akers, and Darin Klein, organized an exciting array of lec-

Horn, Enrique Huerta, Atsuko Koyanagi, Gabriel Kuri, James Lingwood, Michael Mack,

tures and discussions around the show.

Ramiro Martinez, Cuauhtmoc Medina, Ivo Mesquita, Abaseh Mirvali, Tobias Ostrander,

Portland McCormick, senior registrar, with Julie Dickover and Kate Bergeron, han-

Estella Provas, Emilio Rivera, Jos Roca, Michael Rooks, Lisa Rosendahl, Eugene Sadovoy,

dled the loans and shipping with their ever-impressive precision. As always, I rely on them

Guillermo Santamarina, Kitty Scott, Melanie Smith, Randy Sommer, Angel Gustavo Toxqui,

with complete and justified confidence. Peter Gould and his staff were essential in installing

Rose Vekony, Lourdes Villagomez, and Christopher Waterman.

the exhibition. As usual, Peter handled every complexity with tact and precision.
My other colleagues at the Hammer Museum also deserve thanks for their continued
support: George Barker, Lynne Blaikie, Paul Butler and his staff, Tiffany Daneshgar, Stephen

And finally, I extend my deepest appreciation to Francis Als for his work and for his
openness to exchanging ideas and plans for this exhibition. It has truly been a pleasure to
work with him in putting the project together.

Foley, Andrea Gomez, Jenni Kim, Mo McGee, Michael Nauyok and his staff, Catherine
Russell Ferguson

Russell Ferguson

10

Francis Als: Politics of Rehearsal

We know the conventions of the masterpiece: it is a work of art that is totally resolved, that
leaves nothing to be added. As Virginia Woolf put it, A masterpiece is something said once
and for all, stated, finished, so that its there complete in the mind.1 Comparably, Michael
Fried has influentially argued that in a successful work of art,
at every moment the work itself is wholly manifest.... It is this continuous and entire
presentness, amounting, as it were, to the perpetual creation of itself, that one
experiences as a kind of instantaneousness, as though if only one were infinitely
more acute, a single infinitely brief incident would be long enough to see everything, to experience the work in all its depth and fullness, to be forever
convinced by it. 2
Francis Als, despite making some of the most compelling art of recent years, has an
ambivalent relationship to this idea of complete resolution. He certainly wants his work to
remain in the consciousness of those who see it. He seeks the clearest possible articulations
of the premises that he wishes to explore. In that sense he is looking for the quality of instantaneous presentness that Fried identifies. Yet he is at the same time highly reluctant to bring
any work to an unequivocal conclusion. Certain ideas and motifs are kept open, always
available to be pushed in new directions, reconfigured for new situations. In addition, he
has consistently embraced a durational element in his work. Indeed, he has explicitly
described his work in these terms, as a sort of discursive argument composed of episodes,
metaphors or parables, staging the experience of time in Latin America. 3

Study for Song for Lupita, 1998

Pencil on tracing paper
13 3 4 11 1 2 inches

12

13

From the beginning of his career as an artist, Als has adopted a way of working that

Perhaps this idea is most explicit in A Story of Deception (200306). This film was shot

tends to reject conclusions in favor of repetition and recalibration. He has, that is, put the

in Patagonia, almost as the by-product of another project. Originally Als went there to

idea of rehearsal at the heart of his practice. As the celebrated theater director Jean-Louis

film the ostrich-like birds called nandus. The impetus for that project was a story that the

Barrault put it, the rehearsal is the creative period. For the actor it is the specifically artistic

Tehuelche people used to hunt nandus by walking after them for weeks, until the birds

moment. He sketches out, he effaces, he repents, he conjures up. This process means that

collapsed from exhaustion. The relationship of the role of walking to his own work was fas-

the moment of completion is always still to come. Each completed rehearsal opens the

cinating to Als, but in the end he felt that his film stayed too close to a conventional nature

door to a further rehearsal, one more iteration in which things can be improved, simplified,

documentary. What he did find, however, when looking at his footage were the mirages

or deleted. If a work is still in rehearsal, then it can always be changed. The moment of

that would appear down the dusty roads along which he was traveling. In the end, the work

completion is always potentially delayed. For Als, then, the final work is always in some

became this footage, an endlessly shimmering mirage that is always retreating down the

sense projected into the future, a future that is always advancing just ahead of the work. In

road just ahead of the viewer. As he has said of this work:

the interim it can constantly be revisited, and its presence can be constantly shape-shifting,
not just in the form of documentation through photographs or video, but also through

Without the movement of the viewer/observer, the mirage would be nothing

written descriptions or oral accounts passed from person to person.

more than an inert stain, merely an optical vibration in the landscape. It is our

The refusal of closure is true not just of performance-based works, but also of the

advance that awakens it, our progression towards it that triggers its life. As it

paintings, drawings, and sculptures in Alss studio, which often remain there for years,

is the struggle that defines utopia, it is the vanity of our intent that animates the

picked up and put down again, sometimes worked on, sometimes destroyed, or sometimes

mirage, it is in the obstinacy of our intent that the mirage comes to life, and that

used as starting points for new work. Each delay in letting them leave his hands increases

is the space that interests me.5

the potential for them to be reconfigured in some newly productive way. His drawings
in particular bear the traces of endless revision. In the end they are palimpsests of overlaid
scraps of paper, held together with tape. Works that are performative can constantly be
tested out in new situations, different countries, even. Does a premise that works in Mexico
City still work in Europe? In Los Angeles? And does it work in the same way, or differently?
Some turn out to work the same; others are radically changed by their context.
Alss emphasis on process and response does not, then, tend towards the immaculate resolution of the masterpiece. The idea of rehearsal does, however, contain within it an
ideal of what the finished work might possibly be, even if its incarnations continue to flicker
and change in the light of the fire in the Platonic cave. For Als, that flickering, the movement back and forth and around an idea, is as productive as a determined path towards
a fixed and identifiable goal. In some cases, there may well be no goal beyond the process,
which is almost always a series of more or less tentative moves towards an idea.

A Story of Deception, 200306

In collaboration with Rafael Ortega and
Olivier Debroise
16mm film
4:20 minutes

15

The artists unwillingness to bring a decisive closure to a work is evident even in his
titles. Anyone who has tried to study Alss oeuvre rapidly comes up against the fact that
the very concept of title is exceptionally fluid for him. Unsurprisingly, there are Spanish
and English titles. But titles also change over time. The same title might be given to different
works. Some seem to have multiple titles. A number have formal titles, but also nicknames.
Dates are also sometimes quite slippery and can be extended by a number of years, as Als
continues to make new interventions into apparently completed works.
Even his activity as an artist began tentatively. Only when he was in his early thirties,
after he had trained and practiced as an architect and had moved from Belgium to
Mexico, did he begin to experiment with art. He began, in the early 1990s, with a series of
attempts to address his overwhelming experience of Mexico City. As he described it, The
firstI wouldnt call them worksmy first images or interventions were very much a reaction to Mexico City itself, a means to situate myself in this colossal urban entity. One of
the earliest consisted of three pieces of red, white, and green chewed gum, stuck to a wall
in the sequence of the Mexican flag (Flag, 1990). For Als, an increasing fascination with
the various ways in which resistances to Western modernity were played out in Mexico
went hand in hand with his own inclination to avoid definite conclusions. In Mexico City,
the rebar that sprouts from roofs everywhere sometimes suggests a whole city in a state
of rehearsal for a presentation that may or may not be completed.

La logica del and, 2005

Pencil and pen on postcard
6 1 4 4 3 8 inches
A Story of Deception, 2003
Oil on canvas
Studio view

following spread:
Study for A Story of Deception, 2005
Pencil and pen on paper
6 3 4 9 inches

19

The first body of his work to draw international attention, the series of paintings he
made beginning in 1993 in collaboration with the sign painters (rotulistas) of his Mexico City
neighborhood, are predicated on a potentially endless series of revisions and recapitulations. As he described the process, I commissioned various sign painters to produce
enlarged copies of my smaller original images. Once they had completed several versions,
I produced a new model, compiling the most significant elements of each sign painters
interpretation. This second original was in turn used as a model for a new generation of
copies by sign painters, and so on, ad infinitum.6 They are an endless rehearsal, in other
words, with multiple finished performances (paintings), none of them definitive, none of
them truly final.
With this work, Als took on board another aspect of the rehearsal process: collaboration with others. In theatrical or musical rehearsal, an essential part of practice is the degree
to which the different impulses and talents of the various participants operate alongside
and against those of the others. No matter how determined or dictatorial an author, director, or composer may be, there is always an element of collaboration that is integral to the
passage from initial rehearsal to finished work. Within a year of beginning the rotulista project, Als could say of his collaborations with the sign painters Emilio Rivera, Enrique
Huerta, and Juan Garcia that by now it doesnt matter whether you are looking at a model,
a copy, or a copy of a copy.7 The collaborative element was integrated into the authorship
of the works themselves. At the same time, the rehearsal process remained ongoing. Each
set of paintings would be complete in itself, yet the series would remain permanently
incomplete.

Untitled (Sign Painting Project), 199397

Oil on canvas and enamel on sheet metal
8 5 8 10 5 8 inches
36 1 4 47 5 8 inches
36 1 4 45 1 8 inches

following spread:
Untitled (Sign Painting Project), 199397
Acrylic on board and oil on canvas
63 3 4 43 1 2 inches
47 1 2 36 3 4 inches
11 1 4 8 5 8 inches
9 3 8 7 1 8 inches

pages 2223:
Sign-painting studio,
Mexico City, 1996,
Juan Garcia at right

20

21

24

In Turista (Tourist, 1994), Als simultaneously included himself among the people of
the capital and acknowledged that he remained an outsider. Standing alongside workers
with signs advertising their availability as plumbers, electricians, or painters, Als offered
himself as a turista, a tourist. A tourist, obviously, would not normally be considered a
worker of any kind. As Cuauhtmoc Medina has pointed out, however, there is more than
self-deprecating irony at work here: In his attempt to pass off his work as professional
observer of other peoples everyday life as a professional activity, he is reflecting on his status as a foreigner and also on the ambiguity of the idea of his work as an artist.8 Tourist
is not a job. Is artist? By claiming the debased title of tourist, Als is also, characteristically,
delaying his assumption of the role of artist. He is still just looking:
At the time I think it was about questioning or accepting the limits of my condition of outsider, of gringo. How far can I belong to this place? How much can
I judge it? By offering my services as a tourist, I was oscillating between leisure
and work, contemplation and interference. I was testing and denouncing
my own status. Where am I really standing?
In one of a number of works titled Set Theory (1996), a tiny figure sits alone in an upturned
glass of water, again an image of isolation. Later in 1996, however, just around the corner

Set Theory, 1996

Mixed media

Turista, 1994

27

from the railings where he had advertised himself as a tourist, an unexpected incident introduced a change in Alss role as observer, and the precise moment is documented. If you
are a typical spectator, what you are really doing is waiting for the accident to happen (1996)
begins with the artist in quintessential observer mode, videotaping the movements of a
plastic bottle as it is blown by the wind (and occasionally kicked) around Mexico Citys main
square, the Zcalo. After about ten minutes the action comes to an abrupt end when Als
unthinkingly follows the bottle into the street and is hit by a passing car. In a moment he
goes from observer to protagonist. The endless irresoluable rolling of the bottle had in fact
led to a conclusion. For once, there could be no more delay. Suddenly it seemed that all the
observation had been leading up to this moment. In fact, it is not possible to observe an
action without affecting it. The observer is always involved, always implicated. From here
on, there would be not simply rehearsal, but also a politics of rehearsal.

If you are a typical spectator, what you

are really doing is waiting for the accident
to happen, 1996
Video
10 minutes

29

To put it that way, however, suggests more of an overarching schema than Als would
acknowledge. Another way in which he separates himself from Woolf s completeness or
Frieds instantaneous presentness is in his attraction to fragments rather than wholes. One
of his avatars is certainly The Collector (199092), a little dog-like object on rubber wheels,
its body magnetized, that Als led through the streets to pick up metallic bits and pieces as it
went. Here we can see a developing predilection for the random, for the leftovers of the
city in preference to the all-encompassing modernist rationalism that had informed Alss
earlier training as an architect. Further, in this apparently simple piece, we can see the origins of Alss future as a creator of rumors, of urban mythsthe man who led a magnetic
toy dog on a string through the streets of the city.

opposite:
Collectors, 19912003
Map mounted on wood, photographs,
graphite, and oil on vellum
right and following spread:
The Collector, 199092
In collaboration with Felipe Sanabria
Magnets, metal, and rubber wheels
8 5 8 4 12 5 8 inches
pages 3233:
Study for The Collector, 1991
Pen on paper
6 1 4 10 1 4 inches

35

These stories, however, are themselves fragments, moments snatched in media res,
the way they might be experienced by a passerby. I once asked Als whether he had ever
considered making a conventionally structured narrative film. I rarely deal with more than
one idea at a time, he replied. In that sense, paradoxically, I am not a storyteller. Except
if you look at a story as a succession of episodes. But if I were to make what you call a more
complete story, I would not start at the beginning or the end. I would need to work from
some middle point, because the middle point, the in between, is the space where I function the best.
Re-enactments (2000) may be the closest thing Als has produced to a conventional
narrative. After buying a 9mm Beretta handgun in a downtown Mexico City gun shop,
he proceeded to stroll around the streets with the loaded gun in his hand, apparently
without attracting much attention, until the police finally arrested him. Alss longtime collaborator Rafael Ortega filmed the walk. This narrative has a clear beginning and ending,
and in between it has great suspense, as the viewer waits for the inevitable denouement.
The following day, Als repeated the action with a replica gun, again filmed by Ortega. This
time everything was staged. Astonishingly, even the policemen who had arrested Als the
day before agreed to reenact their roles. While the repetition of the action might seem
to imply that this work is itself a form of rehearsalthe real incident as a kind of rehearsal
for the reenactmentthe clear closure of the narrative means that Als sees it somewhat
differently. The first performance was not a rehearsal for the second. The second was
a reenactment of the first. The difference is crucial. For Als, Re-enactments is less about
rehearsal than it is about how actions that take place in real time are always susceptible
to being recuperated by their own documentation.

Study for Re-enactments, 2000

Pencil and pen on paper
8 1 4 11 inches

Re-enactments, 2000
In collaboration with Rafael Ortega
Two-channel video
5:20 minutes

38

39

40

41

I wanted to question the rapport we have today with the medium of perfor-

Re-enactments itself remains a fairly basic snatch of narrative, but most of Alss stories

mance, the ways in which it has become so mediated by other media, film and

are even more episodic, broken up into little pieces like those The Collector draws to itself.

photo in particular, and how they can distort and dramatize the immediate

As Michel de Certeau put it, Stories about places are makeshift things. They are composed

reality of the moment, how they can affect both the planning and the subsequent

with the worlds debris.9 But out of such debris things do come. In 61 out of 60 (1999), sixty

reading of a performance. What is supposed to be so unique about performance

plaster figurines of Zapatista fighters from Chiapas were broken into pieces; the pieces were

is its underlying condition of immediacy, the imminent sense of risk and failure, etc.

then combined to create sixty-one guerillas. Out of nothing comes something. Out of these
fragments came another fighter. All the figures are now a little incomplete, missing some-

Re-enactments is shown as a double projection, with the two performances taking

place simultaneously and side by side. Which one shows Als with a real gun and which

thing, yet somehow something greater than the sum of the parts has appeared.
61 out of 60 is unusual for Alss work of the 1990s in that it is easy to read a quite spe-

with the replica, however, is not necessarily clear. Als had heightened the risk factor

cific political meaning into the work, although it is certainly not alone in this. Both Housing

immensely, not to make a spectacular performance but primarily to explore the degree

for All (1994) and Cuentos patriticos (Patriotic tales, 1997) make overt political references

to which the documentation of the performance itself would dissipate that element of risk.

too. In Housing for All, Als constructed a kind of tent made from election banners, some of

By risk here I mean not only the real danger to which Als exposed himself, but also the

them bearing the titles slogan, and installed it in the Zcalo on election day: the tent was

sense of unpredictability and potential disaster that is inherent in all live performance.

held aloft by the hot air blowing from a subway vent. Cuentos patriticos referred to a politi-

The real issue with Re-enactments really emerged for him only later, when the piece
was shown outside Mexico. At that point it tapped into stereotypes about Mexico City as
a hotbed of crime and violence. The work seemed to have become about crime rather than
performance. I forgot a basic rule, Als says now. When a work is produced within a
very local context, it can easily acquire a totally different reading abroad, so the parameters
for the piece need to take into account its possible life as an export. I had a similar problem
with the sign-painting project. It was often reduced to an exotic exercise of style.

61 out of 60, 1999

Plaster figures

cal demonstration of 1968.

Housing for All, 1994

44

More typical, however, is the animated film Song for Lupita (1998), the action of
which consists entirely of a woman pouring water from one glass to another and back again.
Als has described this work as a kind of demonstration of the Mexican saying el hacerlo
sin hacerlo, el no hacerlo pero haciendolo, literally the doing but without doing it, the
non-doing but doing it, staging a kind of resignation in an immediate present, inducing a
complete hypnosis in the act itself, an act that was pure flux, without beginning or end.
Even simpler is the video Perro pelota (2000), which documents throwing a ball for a dog
that returns it, over and over again. The motif expressed here in its most straightforward
form is one that Als has made use of in many different ways: going in one direction, then
returning, then repeating. Caracoles (1999), a precursor of Rehearsal 1 (19992004), shows
a young boy kicking a bottle up a steep street, only to let it roll back to him. An equally simple work, but with a quite different form, is Dj Vu (1996the present): a painting and its
exact copy installed separately in an exhibition, so that the viewer sees the painting once,
but then unexpectedly comes upon it again a little later.

Dj Vu, 1996
Oil on canvas
10 1 4 12 5 8 inches each

opposite:
Song for Lupita, 1998
Video
12 minute loop

47

opposite:
Song for Lupita, 1998
Video
12 minute loop
above:
Song for Lupita, 1998
Installation at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin

49

Perro pelota, 2000

Caracoles, 1999
Betacam SP transferred to video
4:20 minute loop

54

55

Both the work that is apparently political and that which is apparently not, however,

One of Alss fascinations has been with the action, sometimes enormously pro-

are informed by a broad interest in the repeated attempts to impose a Northern concept of

tracted, that produces no identifiable result. Paradox of Praxis 1 (1997) is the record of an

modernity on Latin America. In the speech given at his inauguration as President of the

action carried out under the rubric of sometimes making something leads to nothing. For

United States in 1949, Harry Truman announced that he would embark on a bold new

more than nine hours, Als pushed a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it

program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available

completely melted. On one level, this was, as Als explained, a settling of accounts with

for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. It was a sincere version of

Minimalist sculpture.14 Like many artists of his generation, perhaps most notably Felix Gon-

that impulse that, in some respects, led Als to Mexico in the first place. But the Northern

zalez-Torres, Als felt the need to (literally) work his way through the powerful legacy of the

program of modernization and growth has met consistent resistance, even as it has been

dominant art movement of the previous generation. And so for hour after hour he strug-

enthusiastically embraced by elite sectors. Carlos Monsivis has described this tendency as

gled with the quintessentially Minimal rectangular block until finally it was reduced to no

pursued with an almost religious intensity: The Utopia of this centurythat which has been

more than an ice cube suitable for a whisky on the rocks, so small that he could casually

desired above all else, and desired most deeplyhas been the modernization of body

kick it along the street. His hours of labor were themselves distilled into a video only five

and soul. Efficiency and productivity become not only the requirement of industrial sur-

minutes long.

10

vival but a call for the rescue of the new Holy Grail, Growth, now in the hands of the
faithless whose major heresy is unproductivity.11 As Medina has described the results of this
crusade, however:
Southern countries economies are the constant expression of failed modernization. It is no accident that they seem to be under the curse of an eternal return: to
start a process of development over again every five or ten years and leave it
incomplete after coming across new obstacles. When this happens in conditions
of inequality, degradation, and coercion, the economy never manages to gain
ground. There are more than enough reasons; the wounds left by exploitation
make it impossible for people to believe in an ethics of work and the neo-colonial
extraction of wealth does not generate markets activated by the seduction of
consumerismnot to mention that northern capital and investment actually find
the periodic breakdowns quite profitable.12

Paradox of Praxis 1, 1997

Video
5 minutes

This contextsocial, political, economic, and psychologicalunderlies and informs the

whole structure of repetition and rehearsal with which Als works. Against the dogma of
modernity, progress, and efficiency, he has placed anecdotes, gestures, and parables. In this
context, the pouring back and forth of the water in Song for Lupita can be, as Als described
it, a reflection on the struggle against the pressures of being productive.13

9:15 a.m.

9:34 a.m.

12:05 p.m.

9:35 a.m.

3:10 p.m.

3:30 p.m.

5:45 p.m.

3:34 p.m.

6:05 p.m.

61

Beyond the specific relationship with Minimalism, though, there is also something
casually insouciant about Alss performance. Gritty as the context is, there is something of
the dandy in his willingness to put hours of effort into producing a result that is almost literally invisible. As the great theorist of dandyism Jules Barbey dAurevilly wrote, A Dandy
may spend ten hours a day dressing, if he likes, but once dressed he thinks no more about
it.15 The dandy, that is, may put an enormous amount of energy into an activity, but if it
should ever appear that he did, or that he was in any way concerned with the result, then
the effect will be lost. Much of Alss practice reflects a comparable desire to downplay the
results of his intensive labor. Sometimes making something leads to nothing.
Alss most recent activity in making something that leads to nothing, Rehearsal 3
(200607), is actually related to the ancient idea of generating something from nothing. In
his studio, Als and his collaborators have been working on models for perpetual motion
machines, so far without success. The utopian idea of a machine that would produce
energy without consuming it has been a dream of scientists and engineers for centuries,
rather like alchemy. For Als, as sincerely as he produces the wooden models based on
drawings in old texts or from designs of his own invention, this work is also a continuation
of the critique of modernity in its utopian aspect as the panacea that is supposed to cure
6:32 p.m.

all ills.

Mexico City, 1994

Photograph
overleaf:
Study for Rehearsal, 2002
Pencil, pen, and tracing paper on paper
11 3 4 8 1 4 inches
Angel Gustavo Toxqui working on models
for Rehearsal 3, 2006

6:47 p.m.

62

63

Alss main vehicle for the exploration of doing something while producing nothing,
however, has been the act of walking. Walking, he offered, in particular drifting, or
strolling, is alreadywithin the speed culture of our timea kind of resistance. But it also
happens to be a very immediate method for unfolding stories. Its an easy, cheap act to
perform. For many years, he kept in his studio a polyurethane board (As Long as I am
Walking, 1992) that bears the following text:
As long as Im walking, Im not choosing

, Im not smoking

, Im not losing

, Im not making

, Im not knowing

, Im not falling

, Im not painting

, Im not hiding

, Im not counting

, Im not adding

, Im not crying

, Im not asking

, Im not believing

, Im not talking

, Im not drinking

, Im not closing

, Im not stealing

, Im not mocking

, Im not facing

, Im not crossing

, Im not changing

, I will not repeat

, I will not remember

64

65

There are a number of elements that are significant in this text. The first thing that Als
declares he is not doing if he is walking is choosing. By walking he can put off a great many

yet to remain hidden from the worldsuch are a few of the slightest pleasures of
those independent, passionate, impartial natures.16

things, but the first of them is having to make any decision, any commitment at all. As in a
rehearsal, there may be a plan in mind, but its final resolution is indefinitely delayed.

If we can see in Als the holding oneself apart, the pleasure of being an outsider, especially

Indeed, walking itself could be thought of as a kind of preliminary rehearsal, a time when

early on in his work, he never has the aristocratic, aloof quality that Baudelaire ascribed to

ideas are sorted, impressions and images gathered up for potential use, not in a systematic

the flneur: The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.17 For Als,

way but as part of an integration of ideas with environment.

the flneur is a very nineteenth-century European figure. It goes with a kind of romanticism

It should also be noted that in this relatively early work, Als is still in the role of

which does not have much space in a city like Mexico City. The closest Als has come to

observer, not actor. None of these activities or non-activities are specific to any particular

the role of a true flneur is through his stand-in, Mr. Peacock, the real peacock that Als sent

place. As Als said of his early years in Mexico, I think that my status as an immigrant freed

to represent him at the 2001 Venice Biennale (The Ambassador). Als himself stayed away.

me of my own heavy cultural heritage, or my debt to it if you like. But he was not yet quite

In large part, the trajectory of his work has been to get beyond the isolation of the flneur, to

ready to engage with the new culture in which he now lived. In As Long as I am Walking

feel at home not in the sense of the man of the world who feels at home everywhere, and

he is still the uncommitted outsider, a position to which he has a tendency to revert, even

not to remain simply an observer, but to be at home enough with his own role in specific

as over the years his work has become steadily more explicit in its social and political

settings actually to intervene.

engagement. There still remains somewhere in the work a desire to keep the world at arms
length. This renunciatory quality cannot help but remind us of the artists namesake St.
Francis of Assisi, who gave away all his worldly possessions. It was St. Francis, after all, who
said that it is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching, a
sentiment that could not but resonate with Als. And of course, the saint was famous for his
affinity for animals, a trait that the artist also shares (we need only think, for example, of
Sleepers [19992006], in which men and dogs are treated with equal sympathy, both
stretched out asleep in the street). But, on the other hand, Als is scrupulous about not
preaching. He does not walk to instruct.
Is he then, in his walking, a flneur? In Baudelaires well-known characterization of
The Painter of Modern Life, he wrote that:
For the perfect flneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up
house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the
midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and

The Ambassador, 2001

66

68

Towards the end of Alss list, he promises not to repeat. Of course he will repeat; he
does repeat, but each repetition makes something different. And he will not remember, he
says. But he will. And it is the repetition that enables the remembering, not only for the artist but for his audience, as the pattern of circulation continues. In 1995, Als performed The
Swap, for which he stood in a Mexico City metro station all day long swapping one object
for another with passersby. Beginning with his sunglasses, he acquired and disposed of a
variety of objects, including shoes, a flashlight, a hat, and a bag of peanuts. Obviously this is
an action that potentially could be extended indefinitely. It is a version of Franciscan renunciation for the market economy, in which each object disposed of reappears in another
form. Comparably, in The Seven Lives of Garbage (1995), Als dropped seven small bronze
sculptures of snails into the garbage. He later found two of them for sale in the streets, discarded but brought back into circulation regardless. He bought one of them back. The
others continue their slow journey through the market.

The Seven Lives of Garbage, 1995

The Swap, 1995

70

Related to the idea of circulation as a way of delaying completion is The Loop (1997).
For the exhibition inSITE, held in San Diego and Tijuana, Alss contribution was a journey that started in Tijuana and ended in San Diego. Als made the journey, however,
without crossing the border between Mexico and the United States that divides the two cities. Instead, he embarked on a five-week-long trip that took him from Tijuana to San Diego,
but only after passing through Mexico City, Panama City, Santiago, Auckland, Sydney,
Singapore, Bangkok, Rangoon, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Anchorage, Vancouver, and
Los Angeles, circumnavigating the globe to arrive a mere hundred yards away from his
starting point on the other side of the fence. A global version of a walk around the neighborhood, the journey was an enormously elaborate way of producing an absolutely
minimal result, the transit between Tijuana and San Diego. Given the fraught nature of
American debates over the immigration of undocumented Mexican workers in the United
States, however, this piece inevitably took on a politically charged set of connotations.
Although Als himself made a point of not articulating any of these, they were nevertheless
inescapable. Between the long series of refusals documented in 1992 in As Long as I am
Walking and the apparently rambling but politically loaded project of The Loop five years
later, Als had learned how to give his endless procrastinations a politics.

The Loop, 1997, Burma

opposite:
The Loop, 1997

72

Cuentos patriticos uses the idea of circulation, but this time it takes place around the
flagpole in the center of the Zcalo in Mexico City. Als walks in a circle around the pole,
followed by a sheep. With each turn around the pole, another sheep joins in, until he is
trailed by a long line of them, forming a circle. Once the chain is completed, the first sheep
that entered leaves the scene, followed by the second, the third, and so on, until Als finds
himself following the last sheep around the flagpole. This work uses the kind of repetitive
structure Als has found useful elsewhere, but here, again, there is now a specific political
reference. In 1968, as Pablo Vargas Lugo described it, Thousands of bureaucrats were
herded into the Zcalo to demonstrate in favor of the government. Showing their frustration in an act that was both rebellious and ridiculous, they turned their backs on the official
tribune and began to bleat like a vast flock of sheep.18

Cuentos patriticos (Patriotic tales, 1997)

In collaboration with Rafael Ortega
Video
24:40 minutes

78

79

In the late 1990s, Als specifically began to examine the mechanisms of rehearsal as
such. His film Rehearsal 1 shows a red Volkswagen attempting to reach the top of a steep hill
in Tijuana. At the same time a soundtrack plays, featuring a brass band rehearsing a danzon,
recorded in Juchitan by Als a few months earlier. The two elements are in fact synchronized. Als listened to the recording on headphones as he drove. While the musicians are
playing, the car goes up the hill. When the musicians lose track and stop, the car stops. And
while the musicians are tuning their instruments and talking among themselves, the car
rolls back down the hill. As Als has described this work, The stubborn repetition effect
hints at a story that is constantly delayed, and where the attempt to formulate the story
takes the lead over the story itself. It is a story of struggle rather than one of achievement,
an allegory in process rather than a quest for synthesis.19 The actual rehearsal of the band
turned out to be the perfect vehicle through which to articulate a process that inevitably
involves endless repetition. There was a very physical way of rendering this constant pushing away of the final moment, or climax, or conclusion. At the same time, however, it
manifests the overt collaboration of a number of people that results in small but incremental changes towards a better performance.
The focus on rehearsal keeps process itself foregrounded, and any conclusion
deferred. Als has been explicit about the driving force behind this work: The intention
behind these short films was to render the time structure I have encountered in Mexico,
and to some extent in Latin America. It also recalls the all-too familiar scenario of a society
that wants to stay in an indeterminate sphere of action in order to function, and that needs
to delay any formal frame of operation to define itself against the imposition of Western
Modernity.20

Rehearsal 1, 1999
Pencil and type on paper
11 8 1 2 inches

overleaf:
Studies for Rehearsal 1, 1999
Pen and pencil on paper
8 1 2 11 inches each
page 81:
Model for Rehearsal 1, 1997

80

82

Rehearsal 1, 19992004
In collaboration with Rafael Ortega
Video
29:25 minutes

83

85

86

The political nature of the question of time in Mexico is made clear by the Chiapas
guerilla leader Subcommandante Marcos, who said of his conflict with then-President of
Mexico Vicente Fox that it was a struggle between a clock operated by a punch card,
which is Foxs time, and an hourglass, which is ours. The dispute is over whether we bend
to the discipline of the factory clock or Fox bends to the slipping of the sand. Marcos
also commented, on his unwillingness to actually take power in Chiapas, that what
we have to relate is the paradox that we are. Why a revolutionary army is not aiming to
seize power, why an army doesnt fight, if thats its job.21 Well, perhaps one might say,
Sometimes, doing nothing leads to something, the principle that Als used in Looking Up
(2001), an action in which he drew a crowd simply by standing in a public square, looking
intently upwards.
Rehearsal 1 was the first in a series of works under the rehearsal rubric, but Alss use
of real rehearsal has not by any means been limited to that series. His 2001 collaboration
with film director Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu was the first work to use the title Politics of
Rehearsal (in full, Politics of Rehearsal (or what makes the traffic move at 6pm on a Friday in
Mexico City)). This work used as its raw material rehearsal footage from Gonzlez Irritus
movie Amores Perros (2000). In Alss subsequent Essay on the Movie Amores Perros (2003
07), a single brief scene is acted out from multiple viewpoints, all of which are visible
through successive steps: from the first rehearsal with the actors reading their parts around
a table in the directors office, then standing up, then on location, then later in costume and
going through the multiple takes of the final shooting. The only thing missing is the scene as
it finally appeared in the directors cut of the film. Everything except the official fiction is
included.

Politics of Rehearsal (or what makes the

traffic move at 6pm on a Friday
in Mexico City), 2001
Installation at Kunst-Werke, Berlin

88

Als has in fact developed an entire repertoire of ways to repeat. His animation The
Last Clown (2000) features endless repetition: the work is a loop with no beginning and no
end. Cantos patrioticos is a loop that advances, overlapping itself and creating interference.
Rehearsal 1 is based upon a pendulum movement: Like a pendulum swaying at the end
of its swing, then returning to the center, regaining speed along the way, the stuttering melody governs the period of the car, inducing its driver into a quasi state of suspension,
hypnotized in the repeated act, conveying a state of resilience, of patient or frustrated
absorption.22 R.e.h.e.a.r.s.a.l. (2000) shows an animator working on the word
rehearsal itself. It follows a pyramid structure that slowly advances letter by letter to the
whole word, then steps down again. In Rehearsal 2 (200106), a stripper performs a zig-zag
stepping backwards and forwards through her constantly delayed performance. For Als,
It is a metaphor of Mexicos ambiguous affair with Modernity, forever arousing, and yet,
always delaying the moment it will happen.23 Unlike Rehearsal 1, Rehearsal 2 does finally
reach its climax, albeit after apparently endless delays. The video Politics of Rehearsal (2007,
included with this book) shows raw footage for this workessentially a rehearsal for a

R.E.H.E.A.R.S.A.L., 2000
Video
2:30 minutes

The Last Clown, 2000

Animation
1:30 minute loop

following pages:
Studies for Rehearsal 2, 2001
Pen, pencil, and type on paper
11 8 1 2 inches each
Rehearsal 2, 200106
In collaboration with Rafael Ortega
Video
14:30 minutes

90

92

95

99

rehearsalwhile the soundtrack consists of a conversation between Als and Medina on

the issue of modernity in Mexico. The structure of When Faith Moves Mountains (2002)
is that of a moving wave pattern. Tornado (2000present) is an expanding spiral. All are
potentially extendable and repeatable.
Als is very circumspect about any direct political impact his work might have:
Political could be read in the Greek sense of polis, the city as a site of sensations
and conflicts from which the materials to create fictions or urban myths are
extracted. I think being based in Mexico City, and functioning in Latin America or
other places where you find yourself confronted with ongoing economic, social,
political, or military conflicts, the political component is an obligatory ingredient
in addressing these situations. But it would be very hard to say to what extent
your act can have a real echo in those kind of situations, and even more to what
extent there is any relevance for a poetic act to happen.

Tornado, 2000present
Work in progress

101

In this regard it is worth comparing two versions of what in some ways might be
thought of as a single work. In The Leak (1995), Als walked the streets of So Paulo holding
a punctured paint can that left a thin wobbly line of blue paint behind him as he passed.
That work was a simple gesture, a way of converting the act of walking into something physical, more lasting than the walk itself. When Als revisited this work in 2004, it was for a very
different context. This time he walked the so-called Green Line, the pre-1967 border
between East and West Jerusalem. And he used green paint, thus literalizing not merely the
fact of his passage but also the idea of the Green Line itself, originally so named because in
1948 Moshe Dayan used a green pencil to draw the border on a map of Jerusalem. The
green line does not really exist any more in practice, but it is constantly referred to by the
different parties of the ongoing dispute. There could hardly be a clearer example of the
infusion of new meaning into an old piece. While The Leak remains a work complete in its
own right, it is also now reconfigured into a rehearsal for the new version. Als acknowledges the change in the title he gave the new work: Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can
Become Political and Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become Poetic (2004). As he
has said, I had reached a point where I could no longer hide behind the ambiguity of metaphors or poetic license. It created a personal need to confront a situation I might have
dealt with obliquely in the past.24 Clearly, the original poetic version of the work has
become political by virtue of the highly charged context into which it has been inserted.
It is important, however, to recognize that this is not just a matter of politicizing an earlier
work. The second half of the title is equally important: the insertion of an essentially poetic
gesture into a situation that is almost always seen through the lens of politics. I am not a
militant, Als insisted. All the poetic gestural elements of The Leak are preserved in the
latter version. The work has, however, become more complex, as he has added layers of
additional meaning to the original action. Always, however, Als avoids didacticism. As he
asks in a text that accompanies Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political,
How can art remain politically significant without assuming a doctrinaire standpoint or
aspiring to become social activism?
The answer, it seems, to that question is for it to take on an existence as a story. Als
always wants there to be a kind of ideal version of each piece that contains within it a kernel
that is coherent enough, simple enough, and relevant enough that it can potentially conThe Leak, 1995

103

tinue to circulate far beyond the orbit of the realized action itself. As he put it, Ill try to
always keep the plot simple enough so that these actions can be imagined without an obligatory reference or access to visuals...so that the story can be repeated as an anecdote, as
something that can be stolen, or travel orally and, in the best-case scenario, enter that land
of minor urban myths or fables. In this context, Als cited the early performances of Chris
Burden as examples of works that circulated as much by word of mouth as by any image or
document. Burden, the artist who had himself shot, or Burden, who had himself crucified
on a Volkswagen: these are actions that many people know of only through having heard
about them, and for that reason are fascinating to Als. Is the potential story good enough
to sustain itself in this way? If the story is good enough, he explained, it will get back to
you or reach its shape by itself. If it isnt, better it dies away.
The model of the story passed on from one person to another is of course an oral one.
As de Certeau described the ever-more threatened oral traditions, these are the fragile
ways in which the body makes itself heard in the language, the multiple voices set aside by
the triumphal conquista of the economy that has, since the beginning of the modern age
(i.e., since the seventeenth or eighteenth century), given itself the name of writing.25 Yet it
is in stories passed informally from person to person that a great reservoir of resistance to
power persists. Thats a fundamental aspect of a political strategy in making art, suggests
Als, because the institutions and the power structure always try to play down the anecdotal. Yet anecdotes weave the fabric of our social existence.26 Alss stories are not
histories, because histories tend towards resolution. The events of narrative history lead
towards some conclusion that, it is implied, was the inevitable result of the actions
described. In some ways his stories more resemble the older tradition of the chronicle,

Map for Sometimes Doing Something Poetic

Can Become Political and Sometimes Doing
Something Political Can Become Poetic, 2004

following spread:
Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can
Become Political and Sometimes Doing
Something Political Can Become Poetic, 2004
Video
17:45 miniutes

104

106

a series of events that may or may not relate to each other, passed on from one person to
another. In the chronicle, no end is implied, because there are always further potential
events to be added.
There is also a difference, however, between the idea of the chronicle and the idea of
rehearsal. A chronicle is always in the end a series of consecutive events. There may be no
final resolution, but one thing unequivocally follows another and exists prior to the next.
The mechanism of rehearsal proposes a nonconsecutive chronological structure. No conclusion is necessarily reached, but nor is the rehearsal a rigidly sequential process. Instead,
the performers, and we as the audience, can go back and forth in time, starting and stopping and beginning again.
The persistence of an oral culture is often related to the survival of old myths. For de
Certeau, These voices can no longer be heard except within the interior of the scriptural
systems where they recur. They move about, like dancers, passing lightly through the field
of the other.27 Als is interested less, however, in the persistence of old myths and more in
the generation of new ones. This requires convincing the audience for his work to engage
in a genuinely interactive relationship with it. Myth is not about the veneration of ideals
of pagan gods or political ideologybut rather an active interpretive practice performed
by the audience, who must give the work its meaning and social value.28 The work of the
artist can only go so far, that is, before the response of the audience enters into the action.
It is through them that the work continues into the future, its narrative rehearsed again and
again for as long as the story continues to circulate, changing a little in each telling but
retaining a core of meaning. The work needs to be sustained through an interactive process
that keeps it alive and in circulation. Als expressed this idea very simply in the painting

La Leon de musique, 2000

Oil on canvas on wood
23 27 inches

108

109

La Leon de musique (2000), in which two men sit at a table. Suspended between them is a

tension and an emerging movement of resistance. This was a desperate situation calling for

sheet of paper, which they keep upright by blowing on it from either side. The sheet is frag-

an epic response: staging a social allegory to fit the circumstances seemed more appropri-

ile, and sustaining it requires a constantly rebalanced cooperation.

ate than engaging in a sculptural exercise.31 The principle that drove When Faith Moves

In one unusual case, Als was able to generate an object, a poster, by creating the
story, a rumor, first.

Mountains was maximum effort, minimal result. The most apparently minimal change was
effected, and only by means of the most massive of collective efforts.
In a formal sense, just as Paradox of Praxis has a relationship to Minimalism, with

In 1999 I went to stay in a small town south of Mexico City, and, with the help of

When Faith Moves Mountains Als had in mind the tradition of Earthworks and other inter-

three local peoplethe agents of propagationwe started asking around about

ventions into the landscape.

this (fictitious) person who had left the hotel for a walk the night before and had
not come backAlongside the questions and suggestions made by the inter-

When Faith Moves Mountains is my attempt to deromanticize Land art. When

viewees, people would naturally start drawing a portrait of the missing (sex, age,

Richard Long made his walks in the Peruvian desert, he was pursuing a contem-

physiognomy, clothing, reason or cause for his disappearance, etc.) and little by

plative practice that distanced him from the immediate social context. When

little this invented character became more and more real through the public

Robert Smithson built the Spiral Jetty on the Salt Lake in Utah, he was turning

rumour, until, after three days I think, the local police issued a poster with a

civil engineering into sculpture and vice versa. Here, we have attempted to

photo-fit portrait of the missing person. At that point, as the rumour had pro-

create a kind of Land art for the landless, and, with the help of hundreds of peo-

duced a physical trace of evidence of its existence, I considered my involvement

ple and shovels, we created a social allegory. This story is not validated by any

in the project concluded and I left town.

physical trace or addition to the landscape.32

29

This rumor is certainly one of the most extreme examples of Alss ability to put a story into
circulation. In this case, it is clear that the story was enough. Even in some cases in which a
fairly elaborate action was carried out, the story might have been enough. In the case of
the trip around the world, The Loop, Als said, many people suspected that Id never fulfilled the contract, that is, made the trip. But, he insisted, The work would have existed
just the same; it didnt really matter whether I did or didnt go around the world.30
In the case of When Faith Moves Mountains, however, one of Alss most ambitious
works to date, the work did have to be performed. Its physical reality was crucial to its
future existence as something that really, indisputably, happened. Five hundred volunteers
with shovels gathered at a huge sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, and over the
course of a day moved it by several inches. Als developed the idea after first visiting Lima
in October 2000. The political context was inescapable: This was during the last months of
the Fujimori dictatorship. Lima was in turmoil with clashes on the streets, obvious social

Virtues, 1992
Oil and encaustic on canvas
9 1 2 13 3 8 inches

Studies for When Faith Moves Mountains,

2002

114

115

The action itself, as documented in photographs and video, is extraordinarily impressive,

but in the end the social allegory takes over from the works undeniable formal presence.
The action was completely transitory. The next day, no one could recognize that the
huge sand dune had been moved. The true aftermath of the work lies in the ripples of anecdote and image that radiate out from it. We were just trying to suggest the possibility of
change, said Als. And it did, maybe just for a day, provoke this illusion that things could

1 Virginia Woolf, letter, 1 January 1933, in

11 Carlos Monsivis, Millenarianisms in

21 Marcos, in Gabriel Garca Mrquez and

Nigel Nicolson, ed., The Sickle Side of the

Mexico, in Mexican Postcards, trans. John

Roberto Pombo, The Punch Card and the

Moon: The Letters of Virginia Woolf, vol. 5,

Kraniauskas (London: Verso, 1997), 136.

Hourglass: Interview with Subcommandante

19321935 (London: Hogarth Press, 1979).

Marcos, New Left Review 9 (MayJune

12 Maximum Effort, Minimum Result, in

2001), first published in Revista Cambio

2 Fried, Art and Objecthood (1967),

Als and Cuauhtmoc Medina, When Faith

(Bogot), 26 March 2001.

reprinted in Art and Objecthood (Chicago:

Moves Mountains (Madrid: Turner, 2005), 178.

University of Chicago Press, 1998), 167.

22 Als, Politics of Rehearsal, 10.

13 Als, in Diez cuadras alrededor del estudio,

possibly change. In that sense, When Faith Moves Mountains is a true rehearsal for events

3 Francis Als, interview with the author,

that still remain potential, things that may or may not happen in the future. Looking at the

68.

23 Ibid.

Mexico City, 2005. An edited version of the

interview appears in Francis Als (London:

14 Als, in Saul Anton, A Thousand Words:

24 Als, quoted in Martin Herbert, The

video of the hundreds of volunteers shoveling together across the dune, we might also think

Phaidon, 2007). All further quotations from

Francis Als Talks About When Faith Moves

Distance Between: The Political Peregrina-

of Subcommandante Marcoss suggestion that dominant power might one day have to

Als are drawn from this interview unless

Mountains, Artforum (summer 2002): 147.

tions of Francis Als, Modern Painters (March

otherwise indicated.

2007): 87.
15 Jules Barbey dAurevilly, Dandyism

bend to the slipping of the sand.

4 Jean-Louis Barrault, The Rehearsal The

(1844), trans. Douglas Ainslie (New York:

25 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday

Performance (1946), Yale French Studies 5

PAJ, 1988), 53, note. The dandy may not

Life,131.

(1950): 3.

be the first figure that comes to mind in connection with Als, who is never overdressed.

26 Als, in David Torres, Francis Als, simple

5 Als, Fragments of a Conversation in Bue-

But then as Barbey dAurevilly also wrote,

passant, Just Walking the Dog, Art Press

nos Aires, in Francis Als: A Story of

One may be a dandy in creased clothes.

(April 2001): 23.

Deception (Frankfurt: Revolver, 2006), 99.

Incredible though it may seem, the Dandies

once had a fancy for torn clothes. (31, note.)

27 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life,

6 Als, quoted by Corinne Diserns, La Cour

Baudelaire is said to have scuffed up his suits

131.

des Miracles, in Francis Als: Walking Dis-

lest they look too new. See Charles Baude-

tance from the Studio (Wolfsburg:

laire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other

Kunstmuseum, 2004), 139.

Essays, trans. and ed. Jonathan Mayne (New

York: Da Capo, 1986), 27 n 2.

7 Als, in Francis Als: The Liar, the Copy of the

16 Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life

Galera Ramis Barquet, 1994), 43.

(1863), in Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern

Life and Other Essays, 9.

8 In Als, Diez cuadras alrededor del estudio/

following spreads:
When Faith Moves Mountains, 2002
In collaboration with Cuauhtmoc
Medina and Rafael Ortega
16mm film transferred to video
36 minutes

(London: Artangel, 2005), 24.

30 Als, in Shoulder to Shoulder: A Conversation between Gerardo Mosquera, Francis

17 Ibid.

City: Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso,

2006), 26.

29 Als, in James Lingwood and Als,

Rumours, in Als, Seven Walks (200405)

Liar (Guadalajara: Arena; and Garza Garca:

Walking Distance From the Studio (Mexico

28 Als, in Anton, A Thousand Words, 147.

Als, Rafael Ortega and Cuauhtmoc

Medina, in Als and Medina, When Faith

18 Pablo Vargas Lugo, in Als, Diez cuadras

Moves Mountains, 68.

alrededor del estudio, 54.

9 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday

31 Als, in Als and Medina, When Faith

Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: Univer-

19 Als, Politics of Rehearsal, in blueOrange

sity of California Press, 1984), 107.

2004: Francis Als (Berlin: Martin-GropiusBau, 2004), 10.

10 Harry S. Truman, inaugural address, 20

January 1949, published in Inaugural
Addresses of the Presidents of the United States
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1989).

20 Ibid.

Moves Mountains, 18.

32 Als, in Anton, A Thousand Words, 147.

116

selected exhibition history and bibliography

Born 1959, Antwerp, Belgium; lives in Mexico City

EDUCATION
Institut dArchitecture, Tournai, Belgium, 197883
Istituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice, Italy, 198386

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2007

2004

Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political

Walking Distance from the Studio, Kunstmuseum,

and Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become

Wolfsburg, Germany; traveled to Muse des Beaux-Arts,

Poetic, David Zwirner, New York (exh. cat.)

Nantes, France; Museu dArt Contemporani, Barcelona,

Francis Als, Museo de Arte, Lima

Spain (exh. cat.); and Museo de San Idelfonso, Mexico

City (exh. cat.)

2006
A Story of Deception, Patagonia 20032006, Museo de
Arte Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires (exh. cat.)
A Story of Deception, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany

The Prophet, Lambert Collection, Muse dArt

Contemporain, Avignon, France
BlueOrange 2004: Francis Als, Martin-Gropius-Bau,
Berlin (exh. cat.)

(exh. cat.)
The Sign Painting Project (19931997): A Revision,
Schaulager, Basel, Switzerland (exh. cat.)
Black Box: Francis Als, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Diez cuadras alrededor del estudio, Antiguo Colegio de
San Ildefonso, Mexico City

2003
Francis Als: La obra pictria, 19922002, Centro
nazionale per le arti contemporanee, Rome; traveled
to Kunsthaus, Zrich, Switzerland; and Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte Reina Sofa, Madrid (exh. cat.: Francis
Als: The Prophet and the Fly)
The Leak, Muse dArt moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris

2005
Francis Als: (to be continued) 1992, Artspace, Auckland,
New Zealand
Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political
and Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become
Poetic, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Seven Walks, Artangel and National Portrait Gallery,
London (exh. cat.)

2002
Francis Als: The Modern Procession, Project 76, The
Museum of Modern Art, New York (exh. cat.)
Matrix.2, Castello di Rivoli, Museo dArte Contemporanea,
Turin, Italy
Walking a Painting, The Project, Los Angeles
When Faith Moves Mountains/Cuando la fe mueve
montaas, 3 Bienal Iberoamericana, Lima (exh. cat.)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

126
2001

1997

2007

Francis Als, Muse Picasso, Antibes, France (exh. cat.)

Francis Als, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

The Eventual, FRAC Bourgogne, Burgundy, France

1-866-FREE-MATRIX, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum

Jack Tilton Gallery, New York

Mapping the City, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

of Art, Hartford, Connecticut

Sisyphe, Muse des Arts Contemporains Grand Hornu,

Hornu, Belgium

Dibujos animados, Fundacin ICO, Madrid

2005

Lattente, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zrich, Switzerland

1996

Commitment, Cultural Center, Strombeek, Belgium

Small Pictures, The Cartin Collection, Hartford,

Amores Perros vs. Camera in Collaboration with Alejandro

ACME, Santa Monica, California

Doppelgnger, Marco Museum, Vigo, Spain

Museo de Arte Contemporneo, Oaxaca, Mexico

LII Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (exh. cat.)

The Counterfeit Subject (with Yishai Judisman), Boulder

Idylle, National Gallery, Prague; traveled to Domus Artium

Gonzlez Irritu, Kunst-Werke, Berlin

Douglas Gordon. Francis Als, Lisson Gallery, London

Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, Colorado

2000

2002, Salamanca, Spain

Acquisitions of the Collection, Tate Modern, London

Francis Als: The Last Clown, Fundaci la Caixa,

1995

Barcelona, Spain (exh. cat.); traveled to Gallery at

Opus Operandi, Ghent, Belgium

University of Qubec, Montral, Canada; and Plug In

El soplon, Galeria Camargo Vilaa, So Paulo, Brazil

Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg, Canada

(exh. cat.)

(exh. cat.)
Jack Tilton Gallery, New York

La era de la discrepancia, Museo Universitario de

Ciencias y Arte, Mexico City

1994

The Thief, screensaver website project, Dia Center

The Liar/The Copy of the Liar, Galera Ramis Barquet,

for the Arts, New York

Standby, Lisson Gallery, London

Monterrey, Mexico; traveled to Arena Mexico Arte

Contemporneo, Guadalajara, Mexico (exh. cat.)

Drawings, ACME, Los Angeles

1992

Mario Flecha Galeria, Girona, Spain

Galera Arte Contemporneo, Mexico City

1991

Le temps du sommeil, Contemporary Art Gallery,

Saln des Aztecas, Mexico City

Vancouver, Canada; traveled to Portland Institute

for Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon

Performance, New York

Rock: Daros Latin American Collection, Irish Museum
of Modern Art, Dublin
Goetz Meets Falckenberg: Works from the Goetz Collection
and the Falckenberg Collection, Sammlung
Falckenberg, Hamburg, Germany

to Potsdam, Germany
Snafu: Medien, Mythen, Mind Control, Kunsthalle,
Hamburg, Germany
Watch Out, Beaumontpublic, Luxembourg
contemporain, Luxembourg
Faces of a Collection, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Germany
Dark Places, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica,

1998

The Netherlands
Performa 05: The First Biennial of New Visual Art

2006

Raconte-moi/Tell me, Casino Luxembourg, Forum dart

Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zrich, Switzerland

Connecticut
MonopolisAntwerp, Witte de With, Rotterdam,

A Show of Prints, James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe

Ideal City/Invisible Cities, Zamosc, Poland; traveled

1999

California
MODERNITE # II, Le Grand Caf, Centre dArt
Contemporain, Saint-Nazaire, France
Satellite of Love, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The
Netherlands; traveled to TENT Center for Visual Arts,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Die 90er, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany
Tokyo Blossoms: Deutsche Bank Collection Meets Zaha
Hadid, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Bin Beschaftigt, Gesellschaft fr aktuelle Kunst, Bremen,
Germany
Version anime, Centre pour limage contemporaine,
Geneva, Switzerland
Printemps de septembre 2006, Les AbattoirsFonds
Regional dArt Contemporain Midi-Pyrnes, Toulouse,
France

127

Early Work, David Zwirner, New York

EindhovenIstanbul, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,
The Netherlands (exh. cat.)
Ecstasy: In and About Altered States, The Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (exh. cat.)
Strata: Difference and Repetition, Fondazione Davide
Halevim, Milan, Italy
War Is Over 19452005: The Freedom of Art from Picasso
to Warhol and Cattelan, Galleria dArte Moderna,
Bergamo, Italy (exh. cat.)
Crowd of the Person, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore
Farsites: Urban Crisis and Domestic Symptoms in Recent
Contemporary ArtinSite 2005, San Diego Museum
of Art, San Diego
General Ideas: Rethinking Conceptual Art 19872005,
CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts,
San Francisco
Roaming Memories, Ludwig Forum fr Internationale
Kunst, Aachen, Germany
Here Comes the Sun, Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall,
Stockholm
Desenhos: AZ, Porta 33, Madeira, Portugal
Glasgow International, Glasgow, Scotland
Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video, Miami
Art Central, Miami

128
Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clarks Fake Estates,

129
Densit 0, FRI-ART Centre dArt Contemporain,

White Columns, New York, and Queens Museum of

Kunsthalle, Fribourg, Switzerland; traveled to Ecole

Art, Queens, New York (exh. cat.)

nationale suprieure des beaux-arts, Paris

Police, Landesgalerie am Obersterreichischen

Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria
Point of View: A Contemporary Anthology of the Moving
Image, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York
Theorema: Une collection prive en Italie, la collection
dEnea Righi, Collection Lambert, Avignon, France
Whats New Pussycat?, Museum fr Moderne Kunst,
Frankfurt, Germany
25: Twenty-Five Years of the Deutsche Bank Collection,
Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (exh. cat.)
Realit;-)t, Seedamm Kulturzentrum, Pfffikon, Switzerland

Point of View: An Anthology of the Moving Image,

New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; traveled
to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Soziale Kreaturen: Wie Krper Kunst wird, Sprengel
Museum, Hannover, Germany

Time Zones: Recent Film and Video, Tate Modern,

London
Dedicated to the Proposition, Extra City, Center
for Contemporary Art, Antwerp
2004 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh
Who if not we should at least try to imagine the future
of all this?, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht,
The Netherlands
Uses of the Image: Photography, Film and Video in the

de Paris, Paris
Moving Pictures: A Video Installation Survey, Artcore/
Fabrice Marcolini, Toronto, Canada
Faces in the Crowd: Image of Modern Life from Manet
to Today, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; traveled
to Castello di Rivoli, Museo dArte Contemporanea,
Turin, Italy

Colleccin de fotografia contempornea, Fundacin

Telefnica, Madrid; traveled to Museo de Arte

2003

Contempornea, Vigo, Spain

Outlook: International Art Exhibition Athens 2003,

Made in Mexico, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston;

traveled to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
(exh. cat.)
Artists Choice: Mona Hatoum, Here Is Elsewhere, MOMA
QNSThe Museum of Modern Art, Long Island City,

2004

Elsewhere, here, Muse dArt Moderne de la Ville

New York
Cordially Invited, Centraal Museum, Utrecht,
The Netherlands
O zero, Officinal para Proyectos de Arte, Guadalajara,
Mexico
Triennale Poligrfica, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Gelegenheit und Reue (with Rafael Ortega), Kunstverein,
Graz, Austria
Los usos de la imagen: Fotografia, film y video en La

ArenaSociety for the Advancement of Contemporary

Art in Athens, Athens (exh. cat.)
Strangers: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and
Video, International Center of Photography, New York
(exh. cat.)
Terror Chic, Galerie Sprth Magers, Munich, Germany
The Distance Between Me and You, Lisson Gallery,
London
Stretch: Artists from Canada, USA, Mexico, Cuba,

Experience, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

In Light, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

On Reason and Emotion, 14th Biennale, Sydney, Australia

(exh. cat.)
20/20 Vision, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Communaute 1+2, Institut dart contemporain,
Villeurbanne, France

Inter.Play, The Moore Building, Miami

Shanghai Biennale 2002, Shanghai, China
Extra Art: A Survey of Artists Ephemera, Institute
of Contemporary Arts, London
Structures of Difference, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum
of Art, Hartford, Connecticut
20 Million Mexicans Cant Be Wrong, South London
Gallery, London; traveled to John Hansard Gallery,
Southhampton, England
Mexico City: An Exhibition About the Exchange Rates of
Bodies and Values, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center,
Long Island City, New York; traveled to Kunst-Werke,
Berlin; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City

R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; traveled to Museo

Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain
fast forward: Media Art, Sammlung Goetz, Zentrum fr

LisboaPhoto, Centro Cultural de Belm, Lisbon

Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany;

de Art Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires (exh. cat.)

Peter Kilchmann, Vacio 9, Madrid

traveled to Centro Cultural Conde Duque and Museo

Municipal de Arte Contemporneo, Madrid (exh. cat.)

4th Bienal de Mercosur, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Germany

in Miami, Miami

Coleccin Jumex, Fundacin Telefnica and Museo

Szenenwechsel, Museum fr Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt,

Die zehn Gebote, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden,

Mexico: Sensitive Negotiations, The Institute of Mexico

Imgenes en movimiento/Moving Pictures, Solomon

26th So Paulo Bienal, So Paulo, Brazil

Beach, California

von Krpern und Werten, Kunst-Werke, Berlin

Toronto, Canada
Somewhere Better Than This Place: Alternative Social

Dimension Folly, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea,

Hypermedia, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport

Mexico City: Eine Ausstellung ber die Wechselkurse

Multiplicity/Cuidad Multiple, Panama City

Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires

So Paulo, Brazil

Mexico City
Animation, Kunst-Werke, Berlin

Guatemala, Colombia and Brazil, The Power Plant,

Jumex Collection, Coleccin Costantini, Museo de Arte

30 Aos Galeria Luisa Strina, Galeria Luisa Strina,

el aire es azul/the air is blue, Casa Museo Luis Barragn,

Trento, Italy
Gegen den Strich, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden,
Germany
Communaut II, Institut dArt Contemporain,
Villeurbanne, France
Communaut, Institut dArt Contemporain,
Villeurbanne, France
Treble, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York
Edn, Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City;
traveled to Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogot
Nouvelles Collections, CentrePasquArt, Biel, Switzerland
Revolving Doors, Fundacin Telefonica, Madrid

Germany
Bienal, Jafre, Spain
MultitudesSolitudes, MuseionMuseum of Modern
and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy
The Labyrinthine Effect, The Australian Center for
Contemporary Art, Southbank, Australia
Art>PanamaRadical International Urban Art Event,
Panama City
Killing Time and Listening between the Lines,
La Coleccin Jumex, Mexico City

2002
Hello There!, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zrich,
Switzerland
Super Studio, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
En Route, Serpentine Gallery, London
Axis Mexico: Common Objects and Cosmopolitan Actions,
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California
The 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius
Sunday Afternoon, 303 Gallery, New York
in aktionperformance heute, Kunstverein, Hamburg,
Germany

130
2001
Videoserie in der Black Box: 6 Knstler6 Positionen,
Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany

131
Erste Arbeiten bei Kilchmann, Galerie Peter Kilchmann,
Zrich, Switzerland
Making Time, Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Beach;

Unexpected Encounters, Galleria Prisma, Bolzano, Italy

traveled to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

A Walk to the End of the World, The Foksal Gallery

(exh. cat.)

Foundation, Warsaw
Hhere Wesen befahlen: Anders Malen!, Smart Project
Space, Amsterdam
Loop, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich,
Germany; traveled to P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center,
Long Island City, New York
The Big Show, New International Cultural Center,
Antwerp, Belgium (exh. cat.)

Age of Influence: Reflections in the Mirror of American

Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Dream Machines, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee,
Scotland; traveled to Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield,

Drawn By, Metro Pictures, New York

Thinking Aloud, Hayward Gallery, London

Urban Hymns, Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts

Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles

Mexico City

Stimuli, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

go away: Artists and Travel, Royal College of Art Galleries,
London
Rewriting the City, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard
College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
Mario Flecha Galeria, Girona, Spain
drawings, ACME, Los Angeles

England; and Camden Arts Centre, London

Dirty Realism, Robert Pearre Fine Art, Tucson

Asi est la cosa, Centro Cultural Arte Contemporneo,

1996
NowHere, Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen (exh. cat.)
Latin American Contemporary Artists, R. Barquet/
R. Miller, New York
Pittura, Castello di Rivoli, Museo dArte Contemporanea,
Turin, Italy
Galeria Froment & Putman, Paris

1998
Roteiros, XXIV Bienal, So Paulo, Brazil

Interiors: Francis Als, Kevin Appel, Robin Tewes,

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles

Insertions, Arkipelag, Stockholm

7th International Biennial on the Run, Istanbul

Out of Space, Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany

Loose Threads, Serpentine Gallery, London

1995

God Is in the Details: Films et vidos danimation, Centre

9 Kean Street, Lisson Gallery, London

1er Salon Internacional de Pintura, Museo de la Ciudad

Longing and Belonging, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe

dArt Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland

Looking at You: Kunst Provokation Unterhaltung Video,
Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany
Francis Als/Rafael Ortega, Pierre Huyghe, Beat Streuli,
and Gillian Wearing, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England
Squatters, Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal; traveled to
Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Black Box, Kunstmuseum, Bern
IL Biennale, Venice, Italy
Galleria Prisma, Bolzano, Italy
Da Aversida de Vivemos, Lateinamerikanische Knstler,
Muse dArt moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris

Latin America, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte

Reina Sofa, Madrid
residue, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna

III Bienal Barro de America, Caracas

7th Biennial, Havana

Imaginarios Mexicanos, Muse de la civilisation,

Fuori Uso 2000, The Bridges, Pescara, Italy

Art 21/00, Section Art Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland
International Contemporary Art Biennial, Ekeby Qvarn
Art Space, Uppsala, Sweden
Europe: Different Perspectives Painting, Museo Michetti,
Francavilla al Mare, Italy
Versiones del Sur, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sofa, Madrid

Cuentos patria (Multiplication of the Sheep), Sammlung

Goetz, Munich, Germany
Do You Have Time?, LieberMagnan Gallery, New York
Painting at the Edge of the World, Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis
Exploding Cinema/Cinema without Walls, Boijmans van
Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Drawings, ACME, Los Angeles; traveled to
sommercontemporaryart, Tel Aviv, Israel

San Francisco

Espace 251 Nord, Liege, Belgium

1994
Foodhouse, Santa Monica, California
V Bienal, Havana
Galeria OMR, Mexico City

Situacionismo, Fotoseptiembre, Galeria OMR,

Mexico City
Play Mode, Art Gallery, University of California, Irvine

1993
Lesa Natura, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

Cinco continentes y una ciudad, Museo de la Ciudad

de Mexico, Mexico City

1992
Mxico Hoy, Casa de las Amricas, Madrid

Museo Regional, Guadalajara, Mexico

Rueda como naturaleza, Instituto Cultural Cabaas,

Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; Castello

1997

Espace LEscaut, Brussels

di Rivoli, Museo dArte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy;

inSITE 97, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego,

Mirrors Edge, BildMuseet, Ume, Sweden; traveled to

Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland; and Carrillo Gil Museum,

Mexico City
The passion and the wave, 6th International Biennial,
Istanbul
Spain

Tout le Temps/Every Time, Biennale, Montral, Canada

XLVIII Biennale, Venice, Italy

Mixing Memory and DesireWunsch und Erinnerung,

1st International Biennial, Melbourne, Australia

Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, Switzerland

Quebec City, Canada

Mexcellente, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts,

This Is My World, ACME, Santa Monica, California

Galeria Camargo Vilaa, So Paulo, Brazil

1999

Reality and Desire, Fundacin Joan Mir, Barcelona,

2000

de Mexico, Mexico City

Longitude de Onda, M.A.O., Caracas

Guadalajara, Mexico

and Centro Cultural, Tijuana, Mexico

1991

Antechamber, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

Galera Arte Contemporneo, Mexico City

Body Double, Winston Wchter Gallery, New York

Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio

Addenda, Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium

Latitude 53 Gallery, Edmonton, Canada

Primera Biennial Tridimensional, Mexico City

2nd Biennial, Saarema, Estonia

SOLO-EXHIBITION CATALOGUES & MONOGRAPHS

BlueOrange 2004: Francis Als. Berlin: Martin-Gropius-

133

The Liar, The Copy of the Liar. Monterrey, Mexico: Galera

Bau, 2004. Texts by Als, Hubert Beck, Klaus Biesenbach,

Ramis Barquet; and Guadalajara, Mexico: Arena Mexico

Christopher Pleister, and Luminita Sabau.

Arte Contemporneo, 1994. Text by Thomas McEvilley.

Francis Als. Antibes, France: Muse Picasso Antibes, 2001.

Francis Als. Lima: Museo de Arte, 2007.
Francis Als. London: Phaidon, 2007. Texts by Als, Russell
Ferguson, Jean Fisher, Cuauhtmoc Medina, and
Augusto Monterroso.
Francis Als: La obra pictoria, 19922002. Rome: Centro
nazionale per le arti contemporanee, 2003.
Francis Als: Le temps du sommeil. Vancouver, Canada:
Contemporary Art Gallery, 1998. Text by Kitty Scott.
Francis Als: The Last Clown. Barcelona, Spain: Fundaci
la Caixa, 2000. Text by David G. Torres.
Francis Als: The Last Clown. Montral, Canada: Galerie
de lUQAM, 2000. Text by Michle Thriault.
Francis Als: The Modern Procession. New York: Public
Art Fund, 2004. Texts by Tom Eccles et al.
Francis Als: The Prophet and the Fly. Rome: Turner, 2003.
Texts by Als and Catherine Lampert.
Francis Als: Walking Distance from the Studio. Ostfildern,
Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2005. Text by Annelie Lutgens
et al.
Francis Als: Walks/Paseos. Mexico City: Museo de Arte
Moderno, 1997. Texts by Als, Bruce Ferguson, and
Ivo Mequita.

Study for Dj Vu, 2000

Oil and pencil on tracing paper
16 1 8 11 3 8 inches

Projects 76. Francis Als: Modern Procession. New York:

The Museum of Modern Art, 2002.
Seven Walks (200405). London: Artangel and National
Portrait Gallery, 2005. Texts by Als, Robert Harbison,
James Lingwood, and David Toop.
Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political and
Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become Poetic.
New York: David Zwirner, 2007.
A Story of Deception / Patagonien 20032006. Frankfurt,
Germany: Portikus and Revolver, 2006.
A Story of Deception / Historia de un desengao. Patagonia
20032006. Buenos Aires: Museo de Arte
Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, 2006. Texts by Als,
Eduardo F. Costantini, Olivier Debroise, and Marcelo
E. Pacheco.
Walking Distance from the Studio. Mexico City: Antiguo
Colegio de San Ildefonso, 2006. Text by Cuauhtmoc
Medina.
When Faith Moves Mountains. Madrid: Turner, 2005.
Texts by Susan Buck-Morss, Gustavo Buntinx, Lynne
Cooke, Corinne Diserens, Cuauhtmoc Medina, and
Gerardo Mosquera.

134

GROUP-EXHIBITION CATALOGUES & OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Art Works: Place. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.

Texts by Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar.
Carnegie International. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art,
2004. Texts by Laura Hoptman et al.
Cinema Without Walls. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: 30th
International Rotterdam Film Festival, 2000.
Ecstasy: In and About Altered States. Los Angeles:

Strangers: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and Video.

New York: International Center for Photography; and
Gttingen, Germany: Steidl Verlag. 2003. Texts by Walter
Benjamin, Georg Simmel, et al.
Tercera Bienal Iberoamericana de Lima. Lima: Municipalidad
Metropolitana de Lima, 2002.
Tokyo Blossoms: Deutsche Bank Collection Meets Zaha

ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

Alberge, Dalya. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Peacock.
The Times (London), 6 June 2001, 1, 17.
Als. Francis. The Loop. Untitled, no. 16 (summer 1998):
47.
. The Modern Procession. Artforum (September
2002): 44, 17071.
Ambulantes. Art Press, no. 306 (November 2004): 9.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005. Texts by

Hadid. Frankfurt, Germany: Deutsche Bank Art, 2006.

Antibes, Picasso Museum. Printemps (summer 2001).

Paul Schimmel et al.

Texts by Ariane Grigoteit, Toshio Hara, Tessen von

Anton, Saul. A Thousand Words: Francis Als Talks About

Edn. Mexico City: La Coleccin Jumex, 2004. Edited

by Patricia Martin.
EindhovenIstanbul. Eindhoven, The Netherlands:
Van Abbemuseum, 2005. Texts by Kerryn Greenberg
and Eva Meyer-Hermann.
Goetz Meets Falckenberg. Hamburg, Germany:
Kulturstiftung Phoenix Art, 2005.
Made in Mexico. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art,
2004. Text by Gilbert Vicario.
Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clarks Fake Estates.

Heydebreck, Christiane Meixner, Jonathan Napack,

When Faith Moves Mountains. Artforum (summer 2002):

and Mark Rappolt.

14647.

25. Twenty-five Years of the Deutsche Bank Collection.

Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Deutsche Bank Art, 2005.
Texts by Ariane Grigoteit et al.
Los usos de la imagen: Fotografa, film y video en
La Coleccin Jumex. Buenos Aires: Museo de Arte
Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, La Fundacin/
Coleccin Jumex, and Espacio Fundacin Telefnica,
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The Liar/The Copy of the Liar, 1994

Studio view

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