This project is a reprint of the artist-run journal The Fox, issues No.1, 2 and 3, originally published in New York in 1975–6. Slyce proof-read and edited all three re-typeset issues of the journal and wrote the essay, ‘The Fox: An intervention for our moment’, which contextualises The Fox and its legacy for current practice and activism.
The Fox critically addressed the social dimensions of art practice during a crucial political and cultural conjuncture of the 1970s, in the wake of Conceptualism and its absorption by the museum and market. Editors included members of Art & Language in the UK and New York; there were contributions from Adrian Piper and Martha Rosler, who were among key practitioners mapping the limits of contemporary practices.
The reprint project put this largely untapped resource back into circulation for current practitioners, who share much with the original moment of the journal’s production. Both periods can be characterised as social and economic times of boom and bust when artistic practices negotiate spaces for production beyond the studio and standard commercial platforms for exhibition, distribution and social engagement.
The publications were launched at Unit/Pitt, an artist-run space in Vancouver, 15 November–21 December 2013. Slyce received funding from the RCA to conduct research at the J. Paul Getty Museum, which holds The Fox archives. Since 2008, Slyce has lectured widely on the legacies of post-studio practices and Conceptual art at the ICA, Chisenhale Art Place and Tate Modern. He delivered lectures on ‘The Fox’ in 2011 and 2012 to the MA course in Modern and Contemporary Art and Art World Practice at Christie’s Education in London and New York and Goldsmiths MA Fine Art, Curating and Critical Studies in October 2013.