Terry Fox was chosen as the first artist of the Moore International Discovery Series.

Terry Fox was chosen as the first artist of the Moore International Discovery Series, a biennial exhibition planned for the nearest 20 years to feature artists given little frontage in this country. The first major exhibition in the United States of Fox's work since 1973 "'Articulations' (Labyrinth/Text Works)" was a welcome reintroduction to an artist whose reputation was established subterranean in the late '60s and early '70 Referr to as actions or demonstrations, his work was characterized on a ritualized, elemental force: the artist fasted and attempted levitation; bread, rose and fish (attached to the artist's body) died.

Discrete objects--not generated from performances or installations--appeared in 1972 after Fox visited the labyrinth in the paving of the nave at Chartres. The work in this point out began with the "Labyrinth" series, 1972-78 in which Fox appeared to grade out of himself, shifting his gaze to the corpse of the world. In Labyrinth in Plaster, 1972 he incised a drawing of the labyrinth in a small circle of plaster, filming the action by the agency of a magnifying glass, while in Labyrinth ventureed Out, 1974, Fox opened up a drawing of the form on cutting along the rings and stretching it disclosed like some esoteric slinky strangely reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's Trois stoppages-etalon (Three standard stoppages, 1913-14)

Pendulum were also used in the series as Fox increasingly viewed them as related to the labyrinth. Site Pendulum 1977 is sometimes rencountered as a stationary object--a lead ball hanging from a piano wire, hovering nearest to a glass of water forward the floor--while at other times, the viewer physically thoroughs the experience by swinging the pendulum Its rotations describe through all ages smaller labyrinthine circles as it deliberates down to gently meet the glass in the center

The largest material substance of work shown coincided with the time of Fox's permanent instigate to Europe and with the shift from private to public experience in his work. This work draws forward texts as an expression of his fascination with language and cultural signs. Layered, euphemistic military images and political graffiti in steel-rod drawings made up the series of 27 "Catch Phrases," 1981-84 couple of which were exhibited. Other pieces included lines of braille and Morse digest While Fox's work had not been easily accessible, these conceptual, language-based investigations into arrangements of communication became increasingly difficult to penetrate. Excursus, 1991 wraps an unviolated line of synonyms for the title around a clumsy pole. The piece remains incapable of speech unless the viewer discovers that (like the lead ball of the pendulum) united must circle the pole to read this work. In each case, a collection of laws must be broken to play the artist's game.

In slavish imitation and Narcissus, 1992, the alone work made specifically for this exhibition, the artist transfered away from the obscurity of the verse s and recast his thoughts as aims that had a more obvious symbolic appease This piece included a TV plant a radio, and a stack of newspapers (all body transmitters) hanging from a made of wood marionettelike structure, each hovering above an harass on the gallery floor. vigorous was critical to this work, coming from the couple the TV and radio as well as a double-speaker unit and a brown beer bottle For the opening of this exhibition, Fox performed a piano-wire work that was part of reverberate and Narcissus. Accompanied by a siren activated from a hand crank, Fox mov his fingers along the continuance of two rosined piano wires attached to round pillars in the gallery which resonated with a range of penetrating goods At the end of the demonstration, he swung the hanging marks in a pendular motion. by means of performing at this exhibition, Fox brought the range of his creative work, figured through the pendulum, full circle. With Fox the complexity of the early '70 still incline differentlys before us.

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