For Re-enactments (2001), Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs walked into a gun store in downtown Mexico city (where he lives), purchased a Beretta 9mm and wandered the streets with the loaded gun in hand, waiting for the authorities to intervene. After 12 minutes, Alÿs was eventually apprehended by the police and arrested. The following day he somewhat implausibly convinced the officers to join him in a re-enactment of the event, this time with a replica handgun, blurring the boundaries between documentation and fiction. Alÿs later expressed regret at allowing the work to reinforce and sensationalize the stereotype of Mexican urban violence.
