The Sign Painting Project came into being between 1993 and 1997 through a collaboration between Francis Alÿs and
professional billboard-painters from Mexico City, particularly Rotulistas Juan Garcia, Enrique Huerta and Emilio Rivera.
Alÿs brought the billboard-painters some of his small-format oil paintings and asked them if they would copy and
enlarge these motifs. Today the resulting paintings are scattered throughout the world. This book presents the grand
scale and multifaceted motifs of the Sign Painting Project for the first time.
Francis Alÿs was born in Antwerp in 1959. Since 1987 he has lived and worked in Mexico City. Alÿs studied at the
Institut d’Architecture de Tournai and the Instituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia. He has been the subject of
numerous international exhibitions, most recently at Artangel / National Portrait Gallery, London; The Israel Museum,
Jerusalem; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg / Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sofia, Madrid / Centro nationale per le arti contemporani, Rome; Schaulager, Basel; and the Museum of Modern
Art, New York.
Sign Painting Project
von Francis Alys
