FRANCIS ALYS, MELANIE SMITH, LAUREANA TOLEDO: WORKS FROM THE PETITGAS COLLECTION AT THE MEXICAN EMBASSY LONDON, CURATED BY PABLO LEON DE LA BARRA

Laureana Toledo, Delusion, 2011, acrylic on found newspaper posters, (Who is to name our dream- no river, not the rain). Special commission for the exhibition.


Laureana Toledo, Untitled, 2009, two photo collages


Melanie Smith, Pink Tianguis, 2002, C-Print photograph


Melanie Smith, Spiral City 13, 2003, Acrylic on acrylic


Francis Alys, Sunpath, Mexico City, 1999
Four photographs and sunpaths: 01.11.98, 11:10am; 12.11.98, 11:45am; 20.05.99, 5:45pm; 21.05.99, 1:15pm




Francis Alys, Untitled (dog and railings), 2004, Diptych, Oil and encaustic on canvas on wood


Catherine Petitgas, Catherine Lampert and Pablo Leon de la Barra in conversation.


I was invited by the Mexican Embassy in London (for the first time after being here for 14 years), to organize an exhibition and conversation regarding the artistic relationship existing between London and Mexico. I decided to invite curator Catherine Lampert and art patron Catherine Petitgas to participate in a conversation around the topic, and to curate a small informal exhibition within the spaces of the Embassy with some works from the Petitgas collection that could illustrate this ideas. For the conversation I traced a prehistory of exhibition of Mexican arts in London (see previous posts), and presented the work of the artists in the exhibition, while also creating echos with the work of Mexican artists Helen Escobedo in England in the 50s and 2000s and Felipe Ehrenberg in London in the 1970s. Catherine Lampert talked about her work as director of the Whitechapel Gallery from 1988 to 2001, where she was a pioneer of exhibiting non American and non European contemporary art, including the work of Francis Alys, Francisco Toledo and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Catherine Petitgas talked about her exemplary labour as a patron of Latin American art, and about how she began to collect art from Mexico. Afterwards artist Laureana Toledo discussed the work she has been developing during the last three years in England, while demanding the need of friendly artists visas for artists visiting the UK. We also discussed the urgent need to create an independent and bilateral programme for the support of residencies for artists and the visits of curators from London to Mexico and from Mexico to London.

FRANCIS ALYS 'A STORY OF DECEPTION' AT TATE MODERN

'A Story of Deception', 2003, filming of mirages in a desert highway in Patagonia, Argentina


'The Loop', 1997, going from Tijuana to San Diego without crossing the border and going around the world.


'Patriotic Tales', 1997, Alys leading a circle of sheep around the flag in el Zocalo in Mexico City


'Bandera', 2006, walking with a knotted flag, followed by dogs, around Mexico City's centre


'Ambulantes', (1992- ), street vendors pushing their carts around the centre of Mexico City


'Paradox of Praxis (Sometimes Doing Something Leads to Nothing)', 1997, Mexico City, pushing an ice block until it melts




'Re-enactment', 2000, walk around Mexico City centre with a gun until being arrested, repeat the action the next day with the complicity of the police


'Rehersal', 1999-2001, Tijuana, a VW beetle attempts to go up a hill without ever getting to the top


Continuous performance cancels the sequence of Events


'When Faith Moves Mountains', 2002, 500 volunteer students moving a dune in Lima, Peru



'The Green Line (Sometimes Doing Something Poetic can become political...', Jerusalem, 2005




Jerusalem/Palestine Paintings



'Tornado' 2010, trying to get inside the eye of the storm


It is the Struggle that defines Utopia




Press Release:
Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception
15 June – 5 September 2010 (Press view: 14 June 2010)
Tate Modern, Level 4

Tate Modern will present a major exhibition of work by the celebrated artist Francis Alÿs (born Belgium 1959). Using diverse poetical and allegorical approaches, Alÿs explores political subjects such as contentious borders and economic crises. The exhibition will present iconic works alongside new pieces which have never been shown before in the UK. Working in a variety of mediums including painting, video projection, animation and sculpture, Francis Alÿs is one of the most important artists of his generation.

Francis Alÿs’s work often starts with a simple act, either by him or others, which is then documented in a range of media. Working in urban settings and dramatic landscapes, he creates interventions which frequently address a historical or political concern attached to a specific site. Alÿs moved to Mexico City in the mid 1980s at a time of political unrest. He began to make work which recorded every day life there, capturing images of street sleepers and workers. In Paradox of Praxis 1 1997 Alÿs pushed a block of ice around Mexico City until it melted. The work stood as an allegory about failed modernisation strategies in the region and dramatised the idea of applying maximum effort for minimum results.

Alÿs has carried out actions across Latin America, addressing economic and political crises through extraordinary acts. When Faith Moves Mountains 2002 is described by Alÿs as ‘land art for the landless’.The work involved organising a line of 500 Peruvian students walking over a sand dune in Lima, digging as they went, shifting the dune by a few centimetres. While the alteration of the mountain was minimal, the event explored the power of communal action. The exhibition will also feature The Green Line 2004. Over two days, Alÿs walked through Jerusalem trailing a line of green paint from a can as he paced along the route of the armistice border, known as ‘the green line’, drawn between Israel and Jordan in 1948. In this work he questioned whether a poetic act could have relevance in a highly charged political situation.

Alongside video and film installations, the exhibition will include Francis Alÿs’s dream-like paintings Le Temps du Sommeil 1996-present and different objects that he makes with various fabricators in Mexico. The exhibition closes with the first ever display of Alÿs’s powerful video Tornado 2000-10.

Francis Alÿs was born in Belgium in 1959. His work has been included in biennials including São Paulo (1998, 2005), Istanbul (1999, 2001) and Venice (1999, 2001, 2007). He has had solo exhibitions at major international institutions including the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2004) and the UCLA Hammer (2007). Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception is curated by Mark Godfrey, Curator, Tate Modern and Kerryn Greenberg, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with WIELS where it will be curated by Dirk Snauwaert and The Museum of Modern Art, New York where it will be curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Cara Starke.

LACMA'S CONTEMPORARY LATINAMERICAN ART COLLECTION

an Helio Oiticica 1979 penetrable, of which I didn't know of its existence, edition of 3, with warning sign next to it in case you decide to go inside it.


Raul Lozza, Untitled, relief, 1953


Carlos Mérida, Geometric Forms, (Cubos), Painting, 1936


Jesús Rafael Soto, Almost Immaterial Vibration (Vibración casi inmaterial), 1963-1964


Mathias Goeritz, Message, 1967


Eugenio Dittborn, Airmail Painting No. 40, 1985


Cildo Meireles, Webs of Freedom, 1976-1998


Francis Alys, Man with Chair, 1993-1997


Gabriel Orozco, Lost Line, Sculpture, Plasticine and cotton string, 1993-96

I visited LACMA's small but interesting room dedicated to Latin American contemporary art, the expected artists were there (only one small work by a woman Valeska Soares). There was also no Chicano art. I would have expected a room in LACMA dedicated to Chicano-Latino art, but there was none, or I couldn't find it. With Latin American collections, there is always the problem of how to deal with the Chicano-Latino distant cousins, are they Latin American, or North American, or Southern California Artists? Anyway, it would have been interesting to see some work by art collective ASCO, or Daniel Martinez, or even the younger generation Mario Ybarra Jr, Los Super Elegantes, Juan Capistran...

One can only hope that in the near future Los Angeles museums become aware of the importance, because of their location, history and population, of including Latin American and Latino artists within their collection, and hopefully in dialogue with the collection and without segregation.

To view the list of contemporary Latin American artists in the LACMA collection click here.