“[Painting is] about entering a situation that could not exist, only on the paper or canvas.”
— Francis Alÿs
Through his interdisciplinary and conceptual art practice, ranging from performance to painting, Francis Alÿs often uses action as means of intervention. The present work is an intriguing rendition of small precise movements and physical relationships. A suited man is shown at the breakfast table engaged in an elegantly sequential balancing act between his body, kitchen utensils and food. Each element relies on one another in a series of sensitive and deliberate tensions. For example, the light touch of his finger against a spoon stops a falling slice of bread. Alÿs renders a quiet rhythmic moment which, against the backdrop of a dreamlike plane of lime green that enriches the energy of the painting, invites the viewer to reflect on the meditative potential of the quotidian.
"Art provokes a moment of suspended meaning, a sensation of senselessness.”
Much of Alÿs’ work has been influenced by his home, Mexico City. The present work was inspired by the abundant use of hand-painted advertisements in the urban landscape. The bright flat colour and stylised suited gentleman, a reference to a stock-character used to promote tailoring services, evoke this aesthetic to honour the city's sign-painting craft and speak to a collective visual memory shared by its community.
Within this context, the harmonising of chaotic elements in the painting, notably the purposefully spilt coffee, could be a subversive symbol against the strife for perfection perpetuated through commercial advertising. Meticulous, suggestive, and beautiful, the work speaks to the enduring nature of Alÿs’ idiosyncratic and imaginative ability to shed new light on place, time, and action.
