Art News

111 Small-Scale Paintings by Francis Alys at the Irish Museum of Modern Art

DUBLIN.- An exhibition comprising a series of 111 small-scale paintings by the Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs, one of the most original artists working today, opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Friday 26 February 2010. “Francis Alÿs: Le temps du sommeil” has been described as a storyboard or archive of Alÿs’s highly imaginative oeuvre, much of which takes as its starting point simple actions performed by the artist and documented in photographs, film or by other means such as postcards. These actions, involving strange objects and fruitless exercises, frequently suggest the dreamlike state of the exhibition’s title, which could translate as “sleep time”. They are also incorporated into the exhibition in the form of accompanying texts, many derived from the artist’s postcards. Le temps du sommeil was begun in 1995 and continues today as an ongoing body of work. The technique