Francis Alÿs Movies

"Mixing water from the Red Sea with water from the Black Sea". Trabzon, Turkey-Aqaba, Jordan, 2010.

Politics of Rehearsal (2005) Focuses on the theme of rehearsal, which is so characteristic of Belgian-born, Mexico City-based Francis...

The game is filmed from above in a single take, emphasizing the inexorable process of subtraction. Six children place five chairs in a row, facing in...

One of Francis Alÿs’ series of performative videos that politicize absurd or seemingly futile gestures, Paradox of Praxis 5 documents the...

Neither indoors nor out, but on the doorstep, where you might play a quick game while waiting for someone. Girl and boy pile up candy wrappers, face...

First we drive past harrowing scenes of missile and bullet damage, into an area that’s still intact. At a crossroads not far from the...

On a wide, gravelly mountain road, earth-coloured dwellings in the background, small boys scamper behind tyres of different thickness and...

For an indeterminate period of time, the magnetized metal collector takes a daily walk through the streets and gradually builds up a coat mad of any...

For more than nine hours, Francis Alÿs pushes a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it completely melts.

The most basic sense of fun improvises on chance gifts of the environment. Snow-fun is too immediate to need rules, either. One game suggests...

Snail racing is a game of unequal chances, especially when your snails are not trained champions, but randomly plucked off a wall; individual...

We see three kids from behind, standing at a set distance from a peeling, whitewashed wall. The rule is that each player throws a coin against the...

1998, 00:27:43

This game requires considerable practice and precision, especially on the uneven terrain of an urban waste lot. The action consists in flicking a...

A group of children hold hands in a circle. The child in the middle plays the lamb, the one outside is the wolf. The wolf tries to catch the lamb by...

1998, 00:27:42

The bay is peaceful, framed by low hills in the distance. Three boys stand thigh-deep in the brown water, trousers rolled up. The biggest, on the...

“After about ten minutes the action comes to an abrupt end when Alÿs unthinkingly follows the bottle into the street and is hit by a...