Francis Alÿs

Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2006

This work is in good condition overall. The smaller panel has an undulation to its surface and evidence of minor paint craquelure across the undulation. Under ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration, framed. The larger aluminum panel is nailed to the backing board along the edges. There are small patches along all four edges which fluoresce darkly under ultraviolet light inspection, particularly to the bottom right corner and the right edge. Framed.
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Untitled (Diptych) from 2000 belongs to Alÿs' famous sign painting series. For these works, the artist commissioned paintings from a taller or workshop of Mexican sign artists following smaller works that he would make. Alÿs’ small paintings are quirky and subtly surreal. They are almost studies or notes based on his everyday experiences while idly strolling the streets of Mexico City. Alÿs’ pictures are marked by eerie glitches—whether a floating desk or an animated bedsheet--these elements fuse seamlessly into an otherwise ordinary subject. The copy or reproduction that follows from the taller is characterized by the clarity and legibility perfected by the sign-painter and is entirely at odds with Alÿs’ dreamy and imperfectly painted scenes.

In the present work, Alÿs’ hand is evident in the smaller painting on panel. The brushstrokes are thick and the composition is vague and dominated by a turquoise sky over a simple skyline with an empty billboard. The taller’s painting takes the artist’s painting to a new level.  Michael Darling elaborates on this series of works where the city is the subject matter: " In these works, Alÿs offers up relatively blank silhouettes of the Mexico City skyline that have an aura of misty romanticism about them, as if Hopper, Morandi, de Chirico and Richter had collectively guided his brush. This hazy ambiguity leaves considerable leeway for the taller to make the image more distinctly legible, and they are more than up to the challenge.” (Michael Darling “Francis Alÿs and the Return to Normality, Frieze, Issue 33, March - April 1997) The anonymous billboard from Alÿs' painting now becomes a large advertisement for Coca-Cola and the flat turquoise sky is replaced by a lavender sunset with billowy clouds. The works produced by Alÿs and his workshop or taller of sign painters for this series can be seen almost as a game of “Chinese Whispers” as noted by Michael Darling, “where messages change as they pass from person to person and perception to perception, highlighting the ultimate subjectivity of representation, or more specifically, illustrating the divergent values of artistic and commercial image-making. Audiences are rarely given the option to enjoy the romantic world of impressions and the canny directness of advertising in the same artwork, but by bringing his group of signwriters into the gallery, Alÿs eliminates this judgmental dilemma and fosters a liberating, ahierarchical appreciation of diverse pictorial approaches.” (Ibid.)