Terry Fox

born – May 10, 1943, Seattle/Washington (USA)
died – October 14, 2008, Köln (Germany)

1961
Graduates from Issaquah High School. Works one year at Boeing aircraft company and saves money to study art in Rome, Italy. Attends evening art class at Cornish School Of Allied Arts, Seattle.

1962
Attends Accademia delle Belle Arti in Rome, Italy for three months, until school is closed by strikes. Paints independently for remaining nine months.

1963
Moves to San Francisco. Paints independently, inspired by the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud until 1967. Works for U.S.Postal Service and saves money for a return to Europe.

1967
Moves to Amsterdam. Paints and begins first „actions“ after becoming aquainted with Fluxus and „De-Collage Publications“.

1968
Moves to Paris for one year. Makes drawings, rubbings. Begins „street actions“ and process sculpture. Forms interest in Antonin Artaud.

1969
Returns to San Francisco and creates Public Theater, four manifestations of events with posters, in public locations. Works in the field of Conceptual Art.

1970
First solo exhibition at Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco (using two audiotape loops). Begins work with sound. Isolation Unit, performance with Joseph Beuys in the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Germany (extended-play record produced).

1971
National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grant for one year. Purchases Porta-pack video and high-qualitity audio equipment.

1972
Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany, Action for a Tower Room. All works for six years (environments, performances, sculptures, drawings) based on the figure of the Labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral. Concentration on sound as a sculptural medium.

1973
First solo museum exhibition, University Art Museum, Berkeley, California.

1974
National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grant. Produces the Children’s Tapes, a series of 34 videotapes for children. Solo exhibition of these tapes at Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York.

1976
First sound sculpture and large piano-wire instrument, Lunar Rambles, the Kitchen, New York City.

1977
National Endowment for the Arts. Individual Artist grant for one year. Discovers a method to cause piano wire to vibrate longitudinaly. Large rooms and spaces are transformed into sound boxes and resonating chambers.

1978
Adaline Kent Award, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California.

1981/82
One-year grant, Berlin Künstlerprogramm des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes (D.A.A.D.). Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, Switzerland, exhibition with cat., containing an L.P. record, Linkage. Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, exhibition with cat., Metaphorical Instruments.

From 1984
Continuous work in the fields of drawing, sculpture, sound installation, often combined with language and text.

1985
Kunstraum, Munich, Germany, exhibition with cat., Catch Phrases (text drawings), and book, Hobo Signs, with text by Christina Tacke.

1987
Artist in Residence, Capp Street Project; and Artist in Residence, the Exploratorium, both San Francisco. Exhibition at University Art Museum, Berkeley,California. Brochure.

1988
Via Toscanella, Florence, Italy. Permanent outdoor installation.

1989
Het Appolohuis, Eindhoven, Netherlands. L.P.record, facsimile of notebook,Textum (Web); edition of audiocassette, The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Cats; exhibition.

1991
Galerie Löhrl, Mönchengladbach, Germany, exhibition, cat., Objects (Texts)/Drawings (Texts).

1992
Traveling exhibition with catalogue, Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia; University Art Museum, Berkeley; Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles; Santa Monica Museum, Santa Monica, cat., Terry Fox: Articulations (Labyrinth/Text Works).

1996
Jackson-Pollock Grant for one year, New York

1998
First book focused on works with sound, Terry Fox: Works with Sound, produced in connection with an exhibition in the Statdtgalerie Saarbrücken, Germany. The book is dedicated to deceased friend the Austrian poet and Jew’s-harp player Georg Decristel.

2000
Terry Fox: 30 Years of Speaking and Writing about Art, book produced in connection with exhibition at the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany.

2001
Combining visual art and literature: drawings, word-games and riddles, objects, sculptures environment and sound installation.

2002
Text environment based on a poem by Arthur Rimbaud and the concept of synaesthesia, Vocale Vocale, Gallery e/static, Turin, Italy.

2003
(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTIONS & c., Retrospective solo exhibition in the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, cat., Sound Sculpture Narcissus and Echo inspired by „Metamorphoses“, Ovid

2004
The Salt Herring, Text- and Sound Installation based on a poem by Charles Cros

2005
Teaching at the San Francisco Art Instiute, USA

2006
Artist in Residence, Worpswede, Germany

2007
Illuminations, Gallery Ronald Feldman, New York: drawings and objects with Text, Installation

2008
Artist in Residence, Quartier 21, Vienna, Austria, 8 channel sound installation „Acousticks“ „Looking for Mushrooms“, Beat Poets, Hippies, Funk, Minimal Art San Francisco 1955-1968, Museum Ludwig Köln