Untitled
Francis Alÿs
Belgian, born 1959
2002
A color photograph documenting Francis Alÿs’s 2002 performance in which hundreds of volunteers line up with shovels to attempt to shift a sand dune by a few centimeters.
You first notice the long diagonal of white‑shirted figures and dark shovel blades receding into a pale, empty landscape, turning a simple human gesture into a monumental, rhythmic formation.
The piece transforms a modest, collective action into a poetic political gesture, exemplifying Alÿs’s influence on participatory, socially engaged art that probes the limits of agency and symbolic change.
Medium
Color photograph
Dimensions
8 1/2 x 6" (21.6 x 15.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of The Speyer Family Foundation, Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, The Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf, and Committee on Media Funds
Accession
208.2007.54
Palette
Exhibitions
