Ciudad Juarez Postcards is a series of tourist postcards whose images, emblematic cites in the border city, were canceled with black marker until they almost completely disappeared. While only a few traces of light can be seen on the back side, the other side of the postcards shows the original information of the attraction in question. In the midst of obliteration, the small flashes of light can be understood as a pictorial gesture that makes present the symbols of an identity that seeks to survive within a city plagued by conflict.
Ciudad Juarez has been a constant theme in the work of Francis Alÿs, addressed in other pieces of his from 2013 such as in Paradox of Praxis 5 or in Children’s Game 15 / Espejo (Mirror), in which he uses walking and playing, respectively, as poetic actions to traverse the harsh realities of the industrial city. Located in the northern part of the State of Chihuahua, this municipality has for decades been the scene of a deterritorialization caused by violence, corruption, drug trafficking, gender inequality, and the absence of human rights. Here, the dynamics of life have been disrupted and the image of the region has been overexposed under the visual reproduction of a violent territory. However, for the artist it is not enough to deliberately expose the war, but rather to expose the abandonment to which the city has been relegated.
In this context, the obscurity in Ciudad Juarez Postcards seems to glimpse what is hidden behind a region whose tourist attractions, entertainment centers, festivities, and nightlife have been killed off after the exile to which its inhabitants have been forced into in order to escape the violence, and which has turned the city into a kind of ghost town.
AC, May 2020.
Bibliographical References
Francis Alÿs, Relato de una negociación. Mexico: INBAL, 2015. Mark Godfrey, Klaus Biesenbach, Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception. United States: MOMA, 2011. Marti Peran, Post-It City. Mexico/Spain: Turner, 2009. MarIa Paz Amaro Cavada, La recontextualización del discurso del desplazamiento en la obra de Francis Alÿs: hacia una resignificación del arte urbano. Mexico: Thesis Unam, 2008.
Links
https://www.revistadelauniversidad.mx/articles/67b43fb0-b0d1-41d9-9ac0-d594953ef774/arte-francis-alys
http://artobserved.com/2016/08/london-francis-alys-ciudad-juarez-projects-at-david-zwirner-through-august-5th-2016/
https://www.apollo-magazine.com/poetry-and-violence-in-the-work-of-francis-alys/
https://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/show/42718-hotel-ju%C3%A1rez-francis-al%C3%BFs-lights-up-a-ghost-town
https://www.academia.edu/29002090/Francis_Al%C3%BFs_Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez_Projects
Ciudad Juarez Postcards is a series of tourist postcards whose images, emblematic cites in the border city, were canceled with black marker until they almost completely disappeared. While only a few traces of light can be seen on the back side, the other side of the postcards shows the original information of the attraction in question. In the midst of obliteration, the small flashes of light can be understood as a pictorial gesture that makes present the symbols of an identity that seeks to survive within a city plagued by conflict.
