It is played with kites, with snow, with a green twig brush, with broken pieces of mirror or a piñata
Video installation: Copenhagen Contemporary
Artist Francis Alÿs
Children’s play 1999-2022
It was an early morning in October at the hotel by Central Station in Copenhagen, and I was sitting on an ergometer in the exercise room. The screen at the handlebars offered me to let the bike ride go along a small road that wound between almost black lavender fields in France. But the film hangs due to poor coverage. I looked up and noticed someone talking in a tile on the wall in front of me and realized that the cracks resembled a face. I had to add the nose and mouth myself, but the crack «drawn» a head shape, and the hair and something that could suggest an eye. I looked at the face as I pedaled the bike, a «living face» that I wanted to talk to. I forgot the film with the road along the lavender fields that had hung up – and knew the feeling from the day before I visited the exhibition of the Belgian artist Francis Alÿs, Children’s play 1999-2022, at Copenhagen Contemporary. Both this exhibition and the sight of the crack in the tile evoked a sense of joy at spontaneous ingenuity.
Children’s play 1999-2022
In two difficult halls, the screens hang from the ceiling, with over thirty video works of children playing in different parts of the world – Mexico, Hong Kong, Nepal, Switzerland, Congo, Iraq, Jordan, Denmark, Afghanistan, Venezuela, France, Belgium, Morocco and Ecuador.
Child playing in different parts of the world: Mexico, Hong Kong, Nepal, Switzerland, Congo, Iraq, Jordan, Denmark, Afghanistan, Venezuela, France, Belgium, Morocco and Ecuador.
The project has been created over thirty years of Alÿs’ travels. Some of the films are from war-torn countries and refugee camps. These provide another access to the city we know from news reports. They remind us of man’s ability to cooperate within a common framework with set rules, which often are.
The children wait their turn, follow each other and listen. Note that it has been said that it must be possible to throw yourself into the sand, or in the competition whether it is about hitting soda caps with a plank. In other films, it is played with dragons, with snow, with a green twig brush, with broken pieces of mirror or a pinata. No phones, no tablets. Just a child playing, often with other children. They use their bodies actively to jump, knit, sled, balance, kick a ball, keep the kite flying, run round and round in the toy, strike out the hand like a rock, scissors or paper.
The sound from the thirty screens
Some of the works have previously been shown at the Venice Biennale, but this is the first time that all the works have been gathered in one place. It is heard. The sound from the thirty screens fills the two halls with the squeals of children running, of feet running, jumping, balls hitting the ground, shouting, and I think at first that I didn’t manage to be there that long. But soon I forgot the sound and disappeared deep into the film about the boy in Congo who pushes a wheel up the remains of an open pit. He works hard to push the car tire up the gravel and dirt, and when he reaches the top, he lays down in the tire and rolls down. Once down, he begins again with the heavy work of getting the deck up again. The same patient investment of attention is also shown in the film with children organizing snail races. The snails get different types of colors in the house, and when one of the snails finally reaches the goal, it starts to rain and the chalk colors are washed off the snail houses. Nature meets culture.
Homo Ludens
I the book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture from 1971 the Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga writes about the characteristics of play. It’s free. It is something different from ordinary life. It creates order. It is not linked to material interests. And it’s non-profit. He describes play as an important activity in living cultures, but he also points out that play is older than culture. Also, that the animals did not wait for the humans to start playing. Animals invite each other to play through certain ceremonies, rather they follow rules and have fun. Even in the simplest form of play there is a meaning, writes Huizinga. In the game, something is “wasted”. All games matter.
Archive of toys
The exhibition for Alÿs at Copenhagen Contemporary neither explains nor defines what play means. Rather, it is an archive of toys and forms lines of connection between people across the places we come from.
Child who plows, shouts, feet that run, jump, balls that hit the hill…
The exhibition also reminds us of the freedom that lies in immersing oneself in something outside oneself, alone or together with others – which corresponds to Huizinga’s thoughts on play.
Underlying the exhibition is a strong humanism and optimism. But the amount of children and the outline drawn of the life they live in the small section we see in the films, forms a subtle subtext and raises a strong sense of responsibility in me as an adult spectator. Deeply seen, the exhibition, in a playful way, raises serious questions about responsibility – for the children, they are the future, and every choice we make affects their lives.
The exhibition lasts until 10.04.2023. Suitable for children and adults of all ages. https://copenhagencontemporary.org/en/