22 June – 15 August 2022
Terry Fox
Left-Sided Sleeper’s Dream
In Cologne in 1968, Terry Fox realized a radical and momentous artistic work: he decided to stop painting and to devote himself to conceptual art and performance. He stored his paintings in the warehouse of Rudolf Zwirner’s gallery, thus carrying out his first artistic action,
Art Deposit—entirely unnoticed by the gallerist. Terry Fox wanted to share art with others and experience the reactions to it directly. He did not view art as an auratic object, but sought transformation through action. This desire led him to performances, which he staged in front of audiences, sometimes pushing himself and his visitors to their limits. From his perspective, these performances were sculptural works—he described them as “situations”—in which he artistically formed a set of circumstances and energetically and emotionally charged a space.
Left-Sided Sleeper’s Dream was created for the foyer of the opera house in Graz: on November 28, 1981, as part of the Steirischer Herbst, A Night at the Opera followed the performance of two operas by Sergei Prokofiev. Terry Fox borrowed a kettle drum from the orchestra and, in a performance lasting just under ten minutes, not only brought the space and its noble neo-baroque architecture to life, but also made the audience vibrate. Inspired by Antonin Artaud’s “Theater of Cruelty,” Terry Fox created a situation whose intensity and urgency we can hardly ignore, even today.
The work is performed daily except Tuesdays at 3 pm.
Terry Fox was born in Seattle in 1943 and lived in Cologne from 1996 until his death in 2008. The intervention
Terry Fox: "Left-Sided Sleeper’s Dream" is part of a multi-year collaboration with the
estate of Terry Fox.
