PARADOX OF PRAXIS 1 (SOMETIMES MAKING SOMETHING LEADS TO NOTHING)
FRANCIS ALŸS, 1997
Alright, here's the plan, in full. Get a block of ice. A big one. Mexico City. 1997. Now push it through the streets. No cart. No rope. Start with your hands. Keep going until there's nothing left to push. Francis Alÿs did this for more than nine hours. Nine hours. That's not a gesture. That's a shift. Somewhere in the middle it stops being impressive and starts being a question. He announced the answer in advance. It's the title. Paradox of Praxis 1: Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing. At first, the ice is heavy. It fights him. People have to step around this man shoving a perfect white block through traffic. Then, hour by hour, the job gets easier. Exactly as fast as the point of it disappears. Soon he can push it with one hand. Then kick it with his foot. Near the end, the block is the size of an ice cube. Then it's a wet spot. Then Mexico City just keeps being Mexico City. Alÿs had moved there about a decade earlier. An architect who stopped building things. A lot of his work runs on this. Enormous effort, tiny result. Which, depending on the week you're having, is either absurd or extremely familiar. He wasn't mocking it. He was rehearsing it. On purpose. In public. Nine hours of pushing. The video runs five minutes.