PV crashers: a balmy night at the Barbican with Francis Alÿs

God, it’s hot. My pasty body is no match for our newly subtropical summers. Clothes cling to my skin, sweat pours from my brow, my energy drains, my brain bakes. Even the textile artwork wrapping the facade of the Barbican is sweating. For reasons unknown, it drips water onto our shoulders as we walk into the main building. We’re here for the private view of an exhibition by Francis Alÿs, who once pushed a big block of ice around the streets of Mexico City. I could use a bit of that ice. Or some air conditioning.

I get my wish inside the gallery and enjoy the blissful cool of the show, which is made up of big videos and little paintings. The videos are everywhere, projected onto screens suspended from the ceiling and sprung from the floor. They show films of kids playing different games in different parts of the world. In one, a kid stands before a flat lake on a still day and skims a stone towards the horizon. In another, lots of kids race down twisty streets on wooden karts. I start to smile. This is meant to be fun. I turn to look at the paintings, sparsely placed around the room: bomb craters, burnt-out buildings and accusing eyes. I stop smiling. Is this meant to be fun?

On completing the bottom floor, I spot the artist chatting to people on the stairs. He’s so tall that people on steps above him look up to see his face. He moves between amiable conversation and gazing over his exhibition. He’s doing what I assume every artist dreams of: surveying their work in a massive institutional show. PVs like these are for artists at the very top. And Francis Alÿs has made it to the summit. But art world fame is not real-world fame. No one’s heard of Francis Alÿs, really.

So who is he? A tall, thin, pale Belgian living in Mexico City, Alÿs is a ‘multimedia’ artist who made his name documenting solo performances in his adopted home. He likes social dynamics and collective consciousness. He’s been filming children’s games since 1999, first in Mexico City and then further afield, in places like Iraq, Ukraine and Afghanistan. This show has brought a lot of those films together and will bring his name closer to the public consciousness.

Invite-only PVs like this attract a refined crowd. Everyone around us is supposed to be here. They’re wandering around, basking in the light of Alÿs’ videos, saying things like, “You live in Aix en Provence? How lovely!” and, “Don’t you remember? We met a few weeks ago, in Venice.” Anyway, the key thing here is that an event like this guarantees no freeloaders. Except us. We got in here on someone else’s ticket. We have no business with the gallery, they don’t know who we are or why we’re here. The wine will be all the tastier for it.

We exit the exhibition and enter the reception room. The heat ramps up. I spot a bar at the end and move towards it. Several rows of glasses are filled with one of four types of wine. We take two, sink them, take two more, and wander into the Barbican Conservatory. What a swizz! It’s considerably warmer than any room I’ve been in today, or maybe this year, but I couldn’t care less. We wander around, people spot and fix our eyes on the botanical sculptures floating above us. I think about getting another glass and wonder, if an Alÿs painting captured this experience, what would it look like? Interlopers mingling among the air-conditioned art world elite – is this just one big game?