Untitled (Tower) (Primary Title)
Mark Fox, American, born 1963 (Artist)
I take doctrines or edicts, for instance, and transcribe them, then cut the sentences from the paper and use them as the basis from which to build . . . sculptures, rendering these ‘truths’ neutral or unintelligible and thereby eliminating the possibility of fixed meaning.
—Mark Fox
Fox’s past work involved cutouts of his own large-scale cursive writing, which he displayed as piles of words. The texts often connected to his Catholic upbringing. Fox continues to use words and texts with personal meaning, but he now compiles them into more structured forms.
For Untitled (Tower), Fox drew and painted the name of artist Jasper Johns, which he blotted and printed elsewhere on the paper. He then constructed homemade cardboard building units by pressing the damp sheets onto a ribbed mold and sandwiching the corrugated pieces between flat sheets of drawings before cutting them into strips. For Fox, the form, which rises and lightens in color, reflects his esteem for Johns. Another personal note involves the table, for years a painting stand in his studio, with the basket of crayons on its shelf.
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