Francis Alÿs and Alejandro González Iñárritu

Politics of Rehearsal (or what makes traffic move at 6 pm on a Friday in Mexico City), 2002, is a unique collaboration between the Mexico City–based Belgian artist Francis Alÿs and the internationally acclaimed Mexican director of Amores Perros, Alejandro González Iñárritu. Alÿs works with the visual “waste” of Iñárritu’s feature film—the discarded castings, rehearsals, rushes, and takes that never made it into the final cut of the prizewinning film. Scenes of dog fights, clashes, and car crashes are shown here on more than thirty monitors and screens, set up in blocks or standing alone in the exhibition hall. One set, eight monitors neatly lined up on the floor, presents fragments from a violent hostage-taking scene while, on another lone monitor tucked in a corner, the same assailant calmly has his makeup done. Far from offering an insider’s view of the making of the film, Alÿs sets out to destroy the monumentality of the movie screen by presenting all the elements that have been repressed—a kind of mnemonic hall of mirrors. For Alÿs, “never giving into the movie” is also a reflection of Mexico’s refusal to adopt the imposed narratives of Western modernity and its preference for repetition, delay, and deferral over the inescapable finality of the event.