Art News

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

Francis Alÿs - "Le Temps du Sommeil", 1996 – presents a series of 100 paintings (ongoing). - Oil and pencil on wood, 12 x 16 cm.

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.