English

Information Posted by Laurie Dalton, Acadia University Art Gallery Director:

Please visit the Side Gallery Annex for a text-based conceptual project by Dr. Barry Fox (Dept of English & Theatre). The Tours and Jaunts of Dr Fox is a single piece comprising seven panels of words, images and arrows. In it a Dr Fox describes (using snapshots) his problems with reaching the Tate Modern Gallery in London when contradictory directions confuse him.  He makes meaning of his situation in light of Magritte and Saussure’s statements about signs.  When he enters the gallery he sits and draws a horse. Damien Hirst dragging along a rotting shark sees it and has the curator hang it in a nearby frame which overlooks a vast poster for the current Futurism exhibition. Suddenly Hirst leaves (to deal with paparazzi), and Fox is distracted by the relief that his horse smelt less than Hirst’s shark .

While in the broad central columns of six panels, Dr Fox makes meaning, erudite critics around the edges use make meaning of what Fox is saying. By the seventh panel Dr Fox’s column is empty and the critics fill  the margins, contrasting Hirst’s shark with Marinetti’s shark/car and the albatross of the ancient mariner.  A version of this exhibition was shown in 2010 at the Nova Scotia College and Art and Design’s Anna Leonowens Art Gallery  in Halifax, NS.  The booklet derived from it is now in the Tate Galleries’ Artists’ Library.