Francis Alÿs Movies

In The Green Line, for which the axiom was ‘sometimes the political is poetic, sometimes the poetic is political’, Alÿs walks holding a punctured can of dribbling green paint along the contested width of the so-called Green Line established between Israel and...

In “Samples II”, Alÿs walks around London with a drum stick in his hand, playing the sounds of metal fences beside him.

This video performance showcases two works by the artist. In the first, he walks through the streets of London, trailing a wooden drumstick along a series of metal railings, producing a percussive, sometimes bell-like noise. The camera follows behind, focusing...

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

The video shows the artist walking in circles around the flagpole (“Madre Patria”) in Zócalo, Mexico City’s monumental central square, which is flanked by government institutions. This work relates to a storied incident that took place during the Mexican gover...

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