FRANCIS ALŸS - DON’T CROSS THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU GET TO THE RIVER

 
May 27 - July 17, 2021
 
DAVID ZWIRNER | PARIS, FRANCE
 
Francis Alÿs, Untitled
(Study for ‘Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River),
2007-2008
© Francis Alÿs. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
 

Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River brings together a video and an important group of paintings, drawings, and sculptures made by Francis Alÿs from 2006 onward that relate to an action that took place simultaneously on opposite shores of the Strait of Gibraltar—in Tangier, Morocco, and Tarifa, Spain—on 12 August 2008.

On this day, a line of local children, each holding a small boat fashioned from a shoe, assembled on the beach in Tarifa and a counterpart line of children holding shoe-boats gathered on the beach in Tangier. Attempting to bridge not only continents but also cultures, the two lines of giggling children waded into the lapping waves, trying to move toward each other, while the tide relentlessly pulls them back to the shore, in an effort to answer the question posed by Alÿs: “Will the two lines meet in the chimera of the horizon?”

First solo presentation in Paris and fourth solo presentation with the gallery since 2004 for the internationally acclaimed artist, who will represent Belgium at the 2022 Venice Biennale.