Went back home to retrieve it, only to return
In Cuentas Partióticos (Patriotic Tales), Francis Alÿs walks around in circles, and in circles, and in circles, at times seeming to herd sheep, at other times seeming to follow them. Shot in black and white, the film delivers a hypnotic experience, leaving the viewer captivated toward the ending of the next cycle: the exit of one sheep. The remaining followers keep walking around as before. I found myself surprised every single time that only one sheep exited, expecting the next one to leave the screen as well, to follow the sheep in front of it, not the rest of the ongoing herd. Obviously, they were instructed very precisely.
Born in Belgium as Francis de Schmedt in 1959 and trained as an architect, the artist has been based in Mexico for over twenty years, alternating a focus on producing work in the public sphere with a practice based in painting and drawing (often studies for later performances). Cuentas Partióticos is staged at Madre Patria, the flag in the central square of Mexico City. Civil servants were forced to herd together here in 1968 to welcome the new government - they broke out in mocking sheep bleats instead (Laura Cummings, The Guardian, 2010). Alÿs' work can be interpreted as both a historical reference to this event, as well as a comment on the human condition to choose to follow over going one's own direction, which in this specific piece is a virtue only embodied by the sheep, not the human.
Alÿs' work rarely feels "done" in a conventional way. His main interest being instantaneous presentness, he's reluctant to bring work to a conclusion. It's all about the bare but registered actions: "Certain ideas and motifs are kept open, always available to be pushed in new directions, reconfigured for new situations." If a work is in rehearsal, it can always be changed. For Alÿs, the final work is always projected into the future, a future that's always advancing just ahead of the work. In the meantime it can constantly be revisited, and its presence can be constantly shape-shifting. (Russell Ferguson, Politics of Rehearsal, 2008)
