7 November 2024

Francis Alÿs

Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River, 2007–2008

Francis Alÿs. The Gibraltar Projects
17 November – 18 December 2024
David Zwirner, New York

Links: [website Francis Alÿs] [Gallery David Zwirner] [Francis Alÿs (publication): Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River” (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Kyoto, Japan, 2013)] [Art21: interview]

Francis Alÿs

Untitled (Study for Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River, 2007–2008

[from the pressrelease]
The Gibraltar Projects: Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River is an expansive group of works made from 2005 onward that derive from Francis Alÿs’ yearslong efforts to create the illusion of a bridge spanning the Strait of Gibraltar. The  Gibraltar Projects consists of paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, notes, and ephemeral materials. With this body of work, Alÿs examines geographical and philosophical notions of borders as well as larger issues concerning freedom of movement. Francis Alÿs: “According to myth, the Strait of Gibraltar is the place where Hercules separated Europe from Africa and opened the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. The Strait seemed like the obvious place to illustrate this contradiction of our times: how can one promote global economy and at the same time limit the global flow of people across continents?”

The body of work on view relates to a public action that took place simultaneously in between Tangier, Morocco, and Tarifa, Spain, cities facing each other across the Strait of Gibraltar. A line of local children, each holding a small boat fashioned from a shoe, assembled on the beach in Tarifa, while 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 children waded into the lapping waves, trying to move toward each other, holding their boats up to the horizon line, while the tide relentlessly pulled 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?”

Alÿs: “The video and the paintings and drawings are about the idea of migration, the idea of the dream, the idea of fantasy, and the idea of failure, but through quite different languages: the drawings [and paintings] are everything I cannot do in real life and in videos. It’s the more allegorical part of the project.”

Francis Alÿs

Untitled (Study for Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River, 2007–2008

Francis Alÿs

Untitled (Study for Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River, 2007–2008

30 October 2024

George Morrison

Untitled, 1958
Gouache on paper
58.4 x 86.4 cm

George Morrison: Paintings and Works on Paper, 1950s–1960s
12 September — 2 November 2024
David Zwirner, New York

George Morrison

Untitled, 1957
Gouache on paper
63.5 x 94 cm

George Morrison

Untitled, 1960
Gouache on paper
44.5 x 58.4 cm

24 July 2024

Willem de Kooning

Untitled (Rome), 1959
ink on paper
101,6 x 76,2 cm

Willem de Kooning. L’Italia
17 April – 15 September 2024
Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia

Willem de Kooning

Black and White Rome F, 1959
Enamel with fine particulate filler on cut, torn, and pasted Fabriano paper mounted on canvas
70.5 x 99.7 cm

Willem de Kooning

Untitled, 1975-80
charcoal on vellum
60.3 x 47.6 cm

13 July 2024

Lorna Robertson

Electric bakery, 2024
Collage and oil on paper
21.7 x 25.2 cm

Lorna Robertson
28 June – 3 August 2024
Alison Jacques, London

Lorna Robertson

Four nights of a dreamer, 2023
Oil on paper
168 x 120.5 cm

Lorna Robertson

Socks and shoes, 2023
Oil on paper
133 x 100 cm

10 July 2024

Josh Smith

Untitled, 2016
Graphite on paper
13 x 14.6 cm

Josh Smith: Life Drawing
21 June – 25 September 2024
The Drawing Center, New York

Josh Smith

Untitled, 2022 
Monotype on Rives BFK
102.2 x 146.1 cm

Josh Smith

Untitled, 2019
Marker and graphite on paper
11.4 x 8.3 cm

A weblog about contemporary drawing, art on paper, notes, scribbles and an occasional painting or photograph.
Curated by Stephan van den Burg

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