Levitation @ Terry Fox. Richmond Art Center. 1970

- FOX Terry, Levitation, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, Ca., 1970. 

Fox attempts to levitate while lying upon ½ tons of earth in the middle of a circle holding four clear polyethylene tubes filled with blood, urine, milk, and water. Afterwords there was an imprint of his body on the earth.

— McCann Cecile N. « Autority and Art (Again) », Artweek, v. 1, October 3, 1970, p. 2. Article describes Terry Fox’s Levitation at the Richmond Art Center, Richmond, Ca., on September 17, 1970, and the ensuing problems with Richmond City Administration officials who declared the work a fire and health hazard and ordered it to be removed from the gallery by curator Tom Marioni. 

— McCann Cecile N. « Terry Fox Sculpture », Artweek, v. 1, May 30, 1970, p. 1. Review of an installation/performance at the Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, in which Fox works with four elements : earth, air, fire and  water. Excerpts : « An important aspect of Fox’s work, as Willoughby Sharp pointed out in an excellent catalogue essay, is that : « The inspiration for much of Fox’s work stems from direct perception and heightened awareness of ordinary events. » (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon) 

— « Terry Fox…’I Wanted My Mood to Affect Their Looks’ », Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, pp. 70-81. An interview. Extrait :

(Fox, on his work Levitation) : I wanted to create a space that was conductive to levitation. The first thing I did was to cover the sixty by thirty foot floor with white paper and to tape write paper on the walls. The floor had been dark, but it became such a brilliant white that if you were at one end of it, it glared, it hurt your eyes to look at someone standing at the other end. I twas such as buoyant space that anyone in it was already walking on air. Then I laid down a ton and a half of dirt, taken from under a freeway on Army Street, in an eleven and a half foot square. The mold was made with four redwood planks each twice my body height – I used my body as a unit of measure for most of the elements in this piece. The dirt was taken from the freeway because of the idea of explosion. When the freeway was built, the earth was compressed,  held down. You can conceive of it expanding when you release it rising, becoming buoyant. Of course, it’s physically impossible. But for me the mere suggestion was enough. I was trying to rise too. I fasted to empty myself… I drew a circle in the middle of the dirt with my own blood. His diameter was my height. According to the medieval notion, that creates a magic space. Then I lay on my back in the middle of the circle, holding clear polyethylene tubes filled blood, urine, milk, and water. They represented the elemental fluids that I was expelling from my body. I lay there for six hours with the tubes in my hand trying to levitate. The doors were locked. Nobody saw me. I didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t close my eyes. I tried not to change my focal point… »