Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing

The discussion about public art and what is considered art reminded me of this artist, Francis Alÿs. I saw his artwork Paradox of Praxis I (Sometimes Doing Something Leads To Nothing) over the summer in an exhibition in Shanghai. It is a film showing Alÿs pushing a block of ice through the streets of Mexico for more than nine hours, until the ice completely melted. He struggled with the quintessentially minimal rectangular block until finally it was reduced to no more than an ice cube suitable for a whisky on the rocks, so small that he could casually kick it along the street.

- Erica