Falmouth Packet, UK
June 4, 2018 Monday
Artist Francis Alys to visit Cornwall for first time
A film by international artist Francis Alys will be shown in Helston from this Friday
Internationally renowned artist Francis Alÿs will visit Cornwall for the first time at the end of this week for the opening of an exhibition of his film in Helston.
The Silence of Ani (2015) will be shown in a specially designed projection space created in the CAST building at 3 Penrose Road.
Opening on Friday, the exhibition is part of Groundwork, the project developed by the Helston-based arts organisation CAST (Cornubian Arts & Science Trust) bringing internationally celebrated art and artists to Cornwall this summer. The Alÿs installation follows an exhibition by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen.
This will be the first UK presentation of Francis Alÿs' film The Silence of Ani (2015), which was commissioned for the Istanbul Biennial. It was shot on location around the ruined ancient Armenian city of Ani, near the border with Turkey.
Known as the "city of 1,001 churches," Ani was once a rich metropolis, but the city had fallen into steep decline during the 13th century and by the 17th century was completely abandoned. The Silence of Ani captures the quiet of a ruined city, broken only by birdsong.
The film speaks of the residue of trauma in a region remembering the genocide that took place a century ago, where an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire.
Francis Alÿs, whose work has been exhibited in the world's leading art museums including Tate Modern and MoMA, New York, originally trained as an architect in Belgium, where he was born. He became an artist after moving to Mexico City in the mid-1980s, at a time of political unrest.
His projects include public actions, installations, video, paintings and drawings.
Following his visit to Cornwall, Francis Alÿs will travel to Liverpool, where his work will headline in the Liverpool Biennial, and to the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, where his one person exhibition Knots'n Dust opens on June 20. The exhibition at CAST continues until Sunday, July 8 and is free to visit, open six days a week, Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm.
