Francis Als: Ricochets; Anthony McCall: Solid Light reviews | Art

AAn astonishing film opens this fascinating exposure. It shows a crowd of children in a barren, barren landscape at dusk, their eyes fixed on the sky. Above them, thousands of black dots buzz. Children seem to imitate the sound, and even the movement, by spinning just below.

Suddenly, a boy grabbed the air, then another, then another. A fourth breaks away and claps his hands. The camera moves from their faces raised to the sky to observe the almost imperceptible descent of one insect after another, in the stifling darkness. Democratic Republic of Congoincreasingly plagued by malaria, and these boys found sound at a level irresistible to female mosquitoes, driving them away from their mates. But it's also a daily game: who will eliminate the most pests in this dance of flirtation and death?

Imbuas he is called, is #30 in Belgian artist Francis Alss great video series Games for childrenwhich began in 1999 and is now approaching 50 in number. Each film is short, exciting to watch, and beautifully observed. And each one is so compelling that you immediately want to watch it again, true to the insatiable nature of the games themselves, after which each one returns in a continuous loop.

Snails or snail races in Belgium feature brightly painted shells and encouraging children, but rather capricious opponents. Ossicle bonesIn Nepal, knucklebones are played with small stones by two girls sitting on a concrete step in the street as people's legs and strange monkeys pass by.

In Hong Kong, a child in a blue apron jumps lightly between the bars of the pedestrian crossing and over those famous deadly cracks in the road. In Mexico, an entire village plays the old game of tag. But instead of the marked children being frozen in place, they are infected with the plague. Infection and now I have to put on a red mask and become one. The last child standing shouts Survivor! The film was made after the first wave of Covid.

There are games of irreducible simplicity that allow for elaborate skill: competitive rope jumping, with double unders or continuous crossings of the fraying rope. There are leapfrog games where girls compete with boys for tricks rather than brawn. There are games played with nothing but rocks and holes in the sand, whose rules are completely inscrutable until you look at them twice. And all this joyful anticipation, this ingenious improvisation with earth, twigs or wind-blown rubbish, takes place among the towers and refugee camps, as well as in the green fields, among the ruins of war as much as peace throughout the world.

Born in Belgium in 1959, living in Mexico since 1986, Als is one of the most human and poetic artists active today. Faced with widespread political demagogues, his internationalism is infinitely subtle. He may not be able to influence the Arab-Israeli conflict, for example, but his 2004 walks of the exact route of the famous Green Line of Moshe Dayan, which divides Jerusalem, flowing green paint As time went on, it became the physical embodiment of an impossible proposition. Because the line never holds, constantly eroded by time and human passage.

Games for children invoking the eponym Painting from 1560 by his compatriot Pieter Bruegel the Elder proposes a world without borders. Here are used plastic kites, skillfully handled in the open air by an Afghan boy in 2011 (under the Taliban regime)., Kite flying is prohibited). A movie about boys flying stones across the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier may seem geopolitical, until you yourself are seduced by the drama of each new ricochet (hence the series title). Plateau luge in Switzerland looks exactly like street racing in HavanaThe cart is made of any old wood, with ball bearings as wheels. An exhilarating carefreeness is matched by a spectacular sound.

Als transformed the gallery into a playground. Upstairs, we find his exquisite animations, chalky white in dark galleries, like the Platonic ideal of games made from nothing: shadow plays, wars thumbs, fingers wandering around. Two bare legs swing back and forth, high and high, out of pure physical joy. There are children's playrooms, curious little play stories that loop around the banisters of the stairs, and many little Alss paintings in unexpected places: cars exploding, little figures jumping (or are they running?), planes above our heads. They show what we can all see, perhaps, but which adults cannot explain to children, who are at least protected by their innocence.

And like Bruegel's masterpiece, Alss's films are allegories for those who choose to see them. In Copenhagen, laughing children cooperate to pass an orange from one forehead to the other. In Kharkiv, in 2023, three boys play checkpoints, calling on passing soldiers to show their papers before saluting cheerfully. Their weapons are wooden, striped with yellow and blue tape. The secret password is the Ukrainian word for bread, which Russians cannot pronounce correctly.

And perhaps the same would be true in Russia, if Als were to make films there. Variations of the same games thrive everywhere. A double-sided screen here broadcasts a film of a European conker game on one side and a Cuban variation on the other, played with tin lids that tinkle like little cymbals; games as a lingua franca of childhood.

Inventiveness, vitality, ingenuity, joy, the power of resilience and solidarity, even the simple willingness to watch and wait: everything on the screen is experienced, to some extent, by the gallery visitor. Als expands the universal game. Go there if you can, and in those moments of pure absorption, leave the world behind and be liberated.

Until next spring, the Tate Modern is presenting spectacular pleasures of another kind: an entire floor of the so-called Solid light works of Anthony McCall, born in Great Britain in 1946, but long based in New York. McCall effectively dissociated cinema from image, by marrying dazzling light to drawing. White beams pass through the museum's dark galleries in conical shafts, made visible by the mist of discreet machines. Some describe curvilinear shapes on walls, moving and expanding into elegant ovals, reminiscent of ribbons or eyes. Others roll like fog, enclosing you in their mysterious dark corridors as you pass through them, a little nervously.

Best of all is Face to facefrom 2013, where evolving rays are projected in two directions at once using a black mirror. The effect is both strange and wonderfully complex. You are here as a shadow, at first, then as a reflection, and finally as a kind of ghostly illusion known as the Brocken specter: a gigantic doppelganger that hovers over the mist before you and only leaves when you leave. turn to face him, making you both feel like you're dissolving into air.

Star rating (out of five):
Francis Als: Ricochets
Anthony McCall: Solid Light

Francis Als: Ricochets is at the Barbican Arts Gallery, London until September 1