Francis Alÿs has been making thoughtful, surprising, poignant, conceptual works of art for four decades. He left his native Belgium for Mexico City in the early 1980s and since then his work has taken him around the world, making work in Morocco, Jerusalem, Wolfsburg Germany, Mosul and Cuba. His exhibition ‘Ricochets’ is currently showing at the Barbican in London and explores a long-running project made alongside his other work, a documentation of children playing in 15 countries around the world.
Alÿs left his career as an architect to become an artist when he left Belgium, and went on to become a much-loved and storied member of the artistic community, representing both Iraq and Belgium at the Venice Biennale. His film, painting and drawing practice is both highly conceptual – he has worked with performance, as well as directing others to perform.
