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

Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception

Arts & Photography

Kwon, Miwon

Weizman, Eyal

Groys, Boris

Medina, Cuauhtémoc

McDonough, Tom

BIESENBACH, KLAUS

Godfrey, Mark

Careri, Francesco

Faesler, Carla

dos Santos, Laymert

History & Criticism

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

In Walkscapes Francesco Careri explores the act of walking, taking a deeper look at three important moments of passage in art history—all absolutely familiar to historians—in which an experience linked to walking represented a turning point. These are the passages from Dada to Surrealism (1921-1924), from the Lettrist International to the Situationist International (1956-1957), and from Minimal Art to Land Art (1966-1967). By analyzing these episodes we simultaneously obtain a history of the roamed city that goes from the banal city of Dada to the entropic city of Robert Smithson, passing through the unconscious and oneiric city of the Surrealists and the playful and nomadic city of the Situationists. What the rovings of the artists discover is a liquid city, an amniotic fluid where the spaces of the elsewhere take spontaneous form, an urban archipelago in which to navigate by drifting. A city in which the spaces of staying are the islands in the great sea formed by the space of going. Fundamentally, for Careri, the act of walking—although it does not constitute a physical construction of a space—implies a transformation of a place and its meanings. The mere physical presence of humans in an unmapped space, as well as the variations of perceptions they register while crossing it, already constitute forms of transformation of the landscape that—without leaving tangible signs—culturally modify the meaning of space and therefor the space itself. From the Introduction by Gilles A. Tiberghien In Walkscapes, Francesco Careri does more than write a book on walking considered as a critical tool, an obvious way of looking at landscape, and as a form of emergence of a certain kind of art and architecture. [...H]e offers us a rereading of the history of art in terms of the practice of walking (such as he conceives of it), from the erection of the menhirs, through Egypt and Ancient Greece, up to the protagonists of Land Art. [...] The idea suffusing the book as a whole, and which the author convincingly describes [...] is that walking has always generated architecture and landscape, and that this practice, all but totally forgotten by architects themselves, has been reactivated by poets, philosophers and artists capable of seeing precisely what is not there, in order to make ‘something’ be there. [...] Such an enterprise has a genuine ‘political’ stake—in the primal sense of the word—a way of keeping art, urbanism and the social project at an equal, and sufficient, distance from each other in order to effectively illuminate these empty spaces we have such need of to live well. From the Foreword by Christopher Flynn Careri traces a genealogy of walking across the twentieth century here, but the aggregate does more than that. This is a smart book, and more importantly, a useful one for those interested in what it means to walk through the banal cityscapes and suburbs of a world whose relationship to urbanism is once more in the midst of radical change.

Walkscapes: walking as an aesthetic practice

polytekton

Travel

Culicidae Architectural Press

Confrontation The act of walking-although it does not constitute a physical construction of a space-implies a transformation of a place and its meanings. The mere physical presence of humans in an unmapped space, as well as the variations of perceptions they register while crossing it, already constitute forms of transformation of the landscape that-without leaving tangible signs-culturally modify the meaning of space and therefor the space itself. From the Introduction by Gilles A. Tiberghien In 'Walkscapes', Francesco Careri does more than write a book on walking considered as a critical tool, an obvious way of looking at landscape, and as a form of emergence of a certain kind of art and architecture. [...W]alking has always generated architecture and landscape, and this practice, all but totally forgotten by architects themselves, has been reactivated by poets, philosophers and artists capable of seeing precisely what is not there, in order to make 'something' be there.

Walkscapes

Walkscapes deals with strolling as an architecture of landscape. Walking as an autonomous form of art, a primary act in the symbolic transformation of the territory, an aesthetic instrument of knowledge and a physical transformation of the 'negotiated' space, which is converted into an urban intervention. From primitive nomadism to Dada and Surrealism, from the Lettrist to the Situationist International, and from Minimalism to Land Art, this book narrates the perception of landscape through a history of the traversed city.

Walkscapes.: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice (English and Spanish Edition)

Architecture

Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.L.

Walkscapes: El andar como práctica estética (Spanish Edition)

Editorial GG

En su anterior libro Walkscapes. El caminar como práctica estética, Francesco Careri eleva a la categoría de arte el acto de caminar. En sus páginas nos descubre el andar como un instrumento cognitivo y creativo capaz de transformar simbólica y físicamente el espacio, un estudio que, con los años, ha acabado convirtiéndose en un clásico de la bibliografía sobre el caminar.Como continuación de este libro, Pasear, detenerse da un paso más allá e introduce en el caminar la experiencia de la pausa, del detenerse, surgida a partir de las acciones y las reflexiones que Careri ha ido elaborando a lo largo de veinte años en sus clases como artista, arquitecto y profesor del Laboratorio Arti Civiche de Università degli Studi Roma Tre. El libro recopila diversos artículos que nos conducen por Stalker, la muerte de Constant, las ciudades de los gitanos rom, diversas deambulaciones por ciudades latinoamericanas y otros episodios que nos abren nuevas miradas sobre el pasear y el detenerse.El corpus teórico y experimental de Careri se muestra en estas páginas con toda su fuerza y, como ya hiciera en su día con Walkscapes, nos introduce en un universo nuevo y sorprendente: el de la ética y la estética del caminar, y ahora, también, del detenerse.

Pasear, detenerse (Spanish Edition)

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