[Pebble Walk] plays with notions of representation and ephemerality. A walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens is commemorated, on free postcards. It "concluded with seven stones in my right shoe and three stones in my left shoe" - a deprecatingly inadequate summary of those vast, flat spaces but an accurate representation of the way events and places are humanly experienced or remembered. — Gabriel Coxhead, Financial Times (paywall), 4 October 2005.
Over five years Francis Alÿs walked the streets of London, mapping its habits and rituals in a range of different media, and the ensuing films, videos, paintings and drawings were presented as Seven Walks at 21 Portman Square in 2005 for the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the UK. Amongst these works was Pebble Walk which depicts one of Alÿs' afternoons mapping the city, juxtaposing a typical postcard image of the skyline and red London buses, with the precise yet mundane details of Alÿs' walk through the park.
Image: Francis Alÿs, Pebble Walk, 1999-2005 Photograph: © Francis Alÿs
at Art Exchange
Colchester, 30 September - 30 November 2013
In the autumn of 2013, Pebble Walk was presented at Art Exchange as part of an exhibition of Francis Alÿs' project Seven Walks. The works in Seven Walks were developed by Alÿs over 5 years, and delved into the everyday rituals and habits of the metropolis. This exhibition at Art Exchange was accompanied by a symposium, which expanded on the themes of Alÿs' explorations of the city, and featured speakers TJ Demos, James Lingwood, Andrés Montenegro, Marina Warner and Richard Wentworth. The discussion was chaired by Dawn Ades.
Image: Exhibition guide for Seven Walks at Art Exchange, 2013.
at the Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Manchester, 2 July - 4 September 2011
Pebble Walk featured in 'Projections', an exhibition of four moving image projects from The Artangel Collection, shown within the context of the Whitworth Art Gallery, its collection, and the park that it shares with the city of Manchester.
Image: Installation view of Francis Alÿs's Seven Walks at Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, 2011. Photograph: Michael Pollard