I have been looking again at Francis Alÿs’ tracing paper drawings. I considered these at some time ago when I was busy with the drawing module of my degree. Then I was struck by the naïve style of his drawings, and the way many seem to be drawn on patched fragments of paper. I was drawing on lots of different surfaces at the time.
I may have read Midori Matsui’s editorial in my copy of Vitamin D (Dexter, E. (2006) Vitamin D; New perspectives in drawing. London: Phaidon Press.) back then, but re-reading it, and looking at how Alÿs uses tracing paper drawings and paintings in the library books I borrowed (Godfrey, M., et al. (2010) Francis Alys; A story of deception. New York: Museum of Modern Art. and Medina, C. et al. (2007) Francis Alys. London: Phaidon.), I can see lots of connections with my project.
* ‘a state of anonymity’ – Matsui says Alÿs uses this as an ‘escape from ‘historically determined cultural identities and prescribed social behaviours’. I hadn’t analysed this before, but it is very important to me that the people in the images I use keep their anonymity, and that I keep my own knowledge of the history, culture and social elements of them detached from the work I am making. I think that Alÿs does this for political reasons. He seems to be driven by a need to place an anonymous individual into existing history/culture/social behaviour in order to evaluate the meaning of self and location. I am doing it because I want to look at the human impulse to construct meaning by imposing ideas about history/culture/social behaviour. By keeping things anonymous, it seems to me that the human experience of instinctively imposing those concepts of ‘sense’ on an image can become apparent.
* Fragments – Matsui connects Alÿs’ use of fragments with Walter Benjamin’s definition of modern allegory. I shall look at what Benjamin says another time. But I can identify with Matsui’s conclusions about Alÿs’ use of recurrent postures in his characters, that they ‘together compile an index…that the imagined nature of a memory… increases its certainty in one’s mind…’ Although it is actual physical postures that Alÿs repeats, I think Matsui’s observation sums up my reason for repeating the same lost film frames. I’m repeating them to invoke the human need to make sense from them, and by doing so, to ‘increase (their) certainty in one’s mind.’
* ‘simulation of remembered personal myths – Matsui says Alÿs drawings are ’empty vessels to be filled with meaning’ to create this simulation. Alÿs’ repetitive fragments form a kind of narrative. I can see that I’ve been doing something similar with my repeated reworks of the lost film frames.
Alÿs’ techniques are interesting. The patching of his fragments makes you imagine an important significance for his bare sketch of the falling dog, or pacing ‘prophet’. The man half-shrouded by what looks like a giant newspaper seems to be engaged in a purposeful struggle.
I could try that with my images, but so far the organic uncontrolled tearing of wetted paper in my paintings seems more relevant to the uncontrolled instinctive human need to make meaning where it is lost.
Alÿs painted this image on tracing paper:
This is an image full of suggestive repetitions. The pacing people are all posed slightly differently, hinting at different motives and moods. The artist’s lined marks from their feet towards the bottom of the drawing emphasise his characters’ repeated movements, but also make it look like Alÿs has painted lines, adding his own repetitions to the image, and underlining the effect he wants. I haven’t tried these sorts of repetitions in my work so far, but may incorporate them in future.
Alÿs’ paper painting is magically Un-torn! He has used oils, which could account for it. Or maybe his ‘tracing paper’ is actually ‘greaseproof’? I know he started using tracing paper because of his origins as an architect. Maybe there is a higher-grade paper I haven’t found yet?! I will try to find out.
