An exhibition with only children playing, doesn't that quickly become too tacky or cosy? Not if the artist is Francis Alÿs. Although it is hard not to smile at the sight of a sandcastle, I left the room with a head full of questions about the nature of humanity. No small feat of hopscotching boys and girls with a hacky sack. And of Alÿs, who, without mingling with the children, paints a picture of games in very different countries. Games as old as the road to Rome.
There are a few things that stand out at a first cursory glance. Alÿs has chosen public space, not private space, which gives a very different dynamic to his work. For me, that gave a kind of universal value to the play, the private of private space is literally missing. Also, there are no parents to be seen. We enter the space of the children and - thus - of our own childhood. All the unwritten rules of the game pass from generation to generation, with no real logic and no parental interference. And yet everyone knows where the boundaries are, what is allowed and what is not.
The sound of children playing.
In the setup at Eye, from the right angle, you can see pretty much the entire exhibition. You are immersed in the world of hoops and rubber bands, shooting little boys with sticks for guns. The cleverness in the set-up is in the sound. You can focus very well on the sound of the film you are standing in front of, but in the background the other films are clearly present. This enhances the feeling of a playground, where children are playing one game with their own friends, while in another corner something completely different is happening. All with their own dynamics and in reasonable harmony.
What is beautiful about Alÿs' work is how it is almost casually social. It focuses on the children all playing outside, in public spaces. This also gives you a glimpse of the circumstances, the world the children are growing up in. Sometimes this is idyllic, but more often it is far from it. Without moralising or explaining, we see what circumstances do to children. We see it without the cynicism or political agenda of adults. Little boys in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, probably one of the most violent places on earth, play with mirrors amid crumbling houses. They play a kind of war. Near the Strait of Gibraltar, kids chink stones over the water. Are they, like many adults, trying to reach the other side, the European side they can see from the beach?
Politics of image.
'Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic.' This quote from Alÿs aptly captures the essence of his work. He has a lightness and a playfulness in his work, including what is not shown here, that is very appealing. Nowhere, however, is it non-committal or uncommitted. The work shown in a separate room, Reel-Unreel, is perhaps the best example of this. Two little boys hoop a film reel. One unwinds the film, the other rewinds it. The context is everything. It is not just the dusty streets of Kabul that give it an extra charge, but especially the knowledge that the Taliban burned thousands of films from the Afghan Film Archive in 2001. This work is about the power of the image: the worse a regime, the more control they want. But also about whether you can capture a city in film. What exactly is the power of the image?
Do boys and girls play the same?
Not everywhere playing girls were allowed to be filmed. A pity, because I am very curious to know whether boys and girls play differently, play more or less and are allowed outside. Looking at my own childhood, I know that I played with a ball and hopscotch in the street and played inside with bears and my big brothers' Lego. Fairly gender-neutral, in other words. What about now? And is it actually the artist's responsibility to answer these questions?
In Nepal, fortunately, girls do play outside. They keep a kind of homemade hacky sack Up, a ball made of leaves. Many a footballer could learn a thing or two from this, including the fun the girls seem to be having. In their school uniforms during playtime, they are mildly competitive with the ball. They count in English who can hold up the ball the longest. One girl can count up to 50. After playtime, they really do have to go back inside. For me, this was one of the most appealing works in the exhibition. Not only because the surroundings with stupas capture the imagination, but also and especially because of the girls' infectious enthusiasm.
Slightly less sweet is the video in which the hind legs of a cricket are pulled out and then they see whose cricket stays alive the longer. I found it less enjoyable to watch, but it is a good reminder that children are not all sweet and cute. Kids bully and can be pretty mean. That is the only moment when we see the downside of children playing. otherwise, the work is a wonderful overview of playfulness amid war, poverty and misery, as well as just kids playing on the beach in Belgium.
The wistfulness of hopscotching.
No child plays with mobiles or other contemporary games. All games have been around for centuries. My grandparents probably played them too (though I hope they left the crickets alone). Yet in the city, I see fewer and fewer children playing outside. I am sure that is partly to do with the changing urban culture and the ubiquitous cars. It makes you wonder what is being lost in terms of socialisation and rule-making and following in the process. Are children being socialised by big tech companies? Do we want them to be? How will subsequent generations make and monitor their own rules? Are we surrendering our imagination and playfulness?
My wistful feeling on leaving the exhibition was not so much to do with the time that has passed since I last hopped. It had everything to do with the fear that soon no one will know how to do it.
Good to knowThe catalogue of the same name is published by NAI010 andn costs 19.95
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