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
Art Terms
Exhibitions
