Francis Alys

In 1997 Belgian artist Francis Alys (b. 1959) created a performance work called The Loop for InSITE, a biennial group exhibition held in Tijuana, Mexico. Addressing the idea of international borders and the contemporary ease/unease of global travel, Alys' contribution was a journey that started in Tijuana and ended in the nearby border town of San Diego — never, however, crossing the Mexico-U.S. border. The artist instead took the long way, skirting the Pacific rim from Mexico to Panama, Sydney, Bangkok, Vancouver, Los Angeles and finally San Diego. The Loop took Alys one month and five days rather a few minutes — an absurd journey that called attention to Mexico and America's fraught attitudes to their shared border. Francis Alys often employs the basic human activity of walking to create performances, photo documentation, videos, slide projections and paintings.