From: University of Michigan - Museum of Art
12/15/2012 - 3/31/2013
Francis Alÿs: Guards - Exhibit
Belgian artist Francis Alys's video Guards (2005) documents sixty-four of the Queen of England's guards on a "walk" throughout the City of London. There is perhaps no more symbolically unemotional character than that of a bearskin-hat-wearing guard of the Queen of England. Yet even with no break in the guards' indifferent exterior, the tale still manages to be a powerful metaphor for the human condition. Many of the elements of Guards are found throughout Alys's work: walking, rhythm, the use of the street and bridges are all common tropes in his oeuvre. These strategies, evoking the poetic and sonic palette of the urban environment, involve a sometimes loose and other times overt relationship to social resistance and to the symbolic and often political implications of these actions. For exhibit information, call (734) 764-0395.
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