Francis Alÿs : The Thief (1998)

Overview

Oscar Muñoz introduces The Thief (1998) by Francis Alÿs:

‘These days I have been working on a projection of sun and shadows that brings back, with great intensity, the memory I have of the first time I saw The Thief by Francis Alÿs. I am still moved by its simplicity and complexity. The economy in the action and in the monochrome materiality of this video, which is nothing more than the silhouette—or is it a shadow?—of a character jumping into the void through a window/screen. No other points of reference appear.’

About the film:
During the Italian Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti developed a system of single point perspective that created the illusion of depth in two-dimensional work. For subsequent generations of artists, painting came to simulate a window onto another world.

The end of the twentieth century popularised the personal computer, whose monitor likewise offered a window into the virtual world. For Francis Alÿs, this technology, along with Windows 95 (the predominant operating system in the 1990s), were fitting analogues to the revolutionary potential of Alberti’s model.

The Thief represents Alÿs’ first engagement with the computer and internet as mediums, taking the form of a short screensaver accompanied by an explanatory website. In the video, a window gradually takes shape against a black background, then a shadowy figure approaches the window and hops over the edge. Alÿs manipulates light and perspective to create ambiguity in the final moments, in which the figure appears to fall forward, dropping out of sight into uncharted depths.

Shot in film and manipulated for the computer screen, this video carries cinematic echoes in its use of title and end credits. The white window can thus be viewed as a movie screen lit by a projector, deepening the connection with artistic mediums as windows to other worlds.

Adapted from an original text by Lynne Cooke.

Courtesy of the artist and the DIA Art Foundation

Screening and Booking Information

The Thief (1998)
Francis Alÿs
Mexico
Experimental | 1 minute
No dialogue

This screening is part of the Genealogies in the Middle East and Latin America project, which explores historical and contemporary relationships between artists from these two regions. It unfolds along narratives revealed by the artists' personal accounts that provide critical alternative perspectives and insights by decentralising dominant narratives, schools and paradigms produced and affirmed in the West.

To learn more, please click here.