About the Artist

curriculum vitae, quotes & contact

Dr Oriana Fox, PhD is an American artist and para-academic based in London who works primarily with video and performance to explore the connections between self-disclosure, non-conformity, creativity, belonging and mental health.

Fox made her first piece of video art as part of a larger quest to find the perfect feminist role model. Searching through the ubiquitous portrayals of women in mainstream culture to no avail, Fox turned to feminist and queer representations to find what was missing, that is, individuals who question the status quo and are shameless in revealing their own imperfections and fallibility. Following their lead to expand her own personal boundaries and push against societal expectations, Fox has taken on a whole host of roles from housewives and exercise goddesses to self-help gurus and Viennese actionists. She takes pleasure in infusing the fantasies of those great mythmakers, TV and Hollywood, with the assertive passion and criticality of feminist art. Mining self-help culture and the makeover paradigm for all that they are worth, whilst also parodying and critiquing its quick fixes and the erasure of labour and pain that they perpetuate, Fox has found a kind of agency in ambivalence. As the years have progressed, she has also taken increasing risks to use her self in her work. Still unable to decide between the perks of the mainstream and the liberation of the avant-garde, Fox has begun filming her own chat show to put this question to guest performers, artists and intellectuals with the hope that one day she herself will become as influential as Oprah.

With a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London, Dr Oriana Fox has shown her work in renowned art venues such as the ICA, Tate Modern and Britain, Orchard Gallery in New York and Kunsthalle Wein, Vienna. She currently lectures in fine art critical studies at Goldsmiths, University of London and in art histories at City and Guilds of London Art School in Kennington.

CV

Personal Information

Oriana Fox is based in London.
born 1978
Place of Birth: New York, NY

Education

GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, London
2011 – 2018   PhD in Visual Cultures
2002 – 2003   MA in Fine Art (distinction)
2000 – 2001   Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, St. Louis
1996 – 2000   BFA in Painting

Selected Exhibitions/ Performances/ Socially Engaged Projects 

2019 The O Show: Academiaphobia, GOLDSMITHS, University of London

2018 The O Show: You’re Only As Sick As Your Secrets, BLOCK 336 GALLERY, London

2017 The O Show: Female Masculinity, Queer and Now, TATE BRITAIN, London

2017 The O Show: Killer Conversations, Joy & Dissent: A Festival of Cultural Activism, HACKNEY SHOWROOM, London

2017 The Paradiso Cinema, LONDON EDITION, Fitzrovia, London

2016 Creative Families, SOUTH LONDON GALLERY, London

2016 The Paradiso Cinema, DITTO, London

2015 Live!art Bodslash Lemoncrit Partytime, ARTS ADMIN, London

2015 Mothership Pilgrimage, GUEST PROJECTS, London

2014 Witch, A SIDE B SIDE GALLERY, London

2014 The Art Party, ICA, London

2014 The Art Party, THE SPA, Scarborough

2013 I’m with you: Daytime Drama, RIVINGTON PLACE, London

2013 Happiness Now?, GUEST PROJECTS, London

2013 Fans of Feminism, The Bank, THE CASS, London

2012 P o P, Performance Matters, THE YARD, London

2012 The O Show (Touring Talk), Remote Control, ICA, London

2011 Women Should Be In Charge, ICA, London

2011 The Do It All Dating Game, NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY, Nottingham

2010 Happiness Happenings, Move: Choreographing You, THE HAYWARD GALLERY, London

2010 Seriously…?, MARGARET HARVEY GALLERY, University of Hertfordshire, St. Albans

2010 Going Public, TATE BRITAIN, London 2009 Once More with Feeling, TATE MODERN, London

2009 Coalesce: Happenstance, SMART SPACE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2008 Iceberg Enters Obelisk, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, London

2008 Liebe (Love), FOTOGALERIE WIEN, Vienna, Austria

2007 Persona Non Grata, ONE IN THE OTHER, London

2007 The Leisure Class, QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY, Brisbane, Australia

2007 Girl on Guy, A+D GALLERY, Chicago, IL

2007 Oriana Fox: Toute Ma Vie (solo exhibition), RED DISTRICT, Marseille

2007 The Plastic Self, ORCHARD GALLERY, New York, NY

2006 Ursula Bickle Video Lounge (solo exhibition), KUNSTHALLE WIEN, Vienna, Austria

2006 Video Cocktail, TATE MODERN, London

2005 Biennale!, DASHANZI International Art Festival, Beijing / April

2005; BOOTLAB, Berlin

2004 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL and THE BARBICAN, London

Awards and Honours

2009 Grant for the Arts, ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND
2009 International Visual Art Grant, DANISH ARTS COUNCIL
2003 Best Experimental Film Award, Short Ends World Film Festival, ICA, London

Residencies

10/2011 Comedy Lab Residency (with Oreet Ashery), METAL CULTURE, Southend-On-Sea

3/2011 Teaching Residency, Drama Department, UNIVERSITY OF HULL, Scarborough

2009 Art in the Archive, WOMEN’S ART LIBRARY and FEMINIST REVIEW bursary residency, London

5-7/2007 Artist in Residence, TRIANGLE FRANCE, La Friche La Belle de Mai, Marseille, France

Conferences, Panels and Symposia

2016 MIRAJ Feminisms and The Moving Image, Chelsea College of Art, UAL, London (panelist/video shown)

2016 Performance and the Maternal: Intersections and Encounters, University of South Wales, Cardiff (contributor)

2016 Reactivating the 1970s: Radical Film and Video Culture, Open School East, London (panelist)

2015 Motherhood and Creative Practice, London Southbank University, London (performance)

2014 Being Visible: Feminism, Art and the Internet, ICA, London (panelist)

2013 Postgraduate Panel, The London Theatre Seminar, Senate House, London (paper given)

2012 Performance Studies International (PSi 18), University of Leeds (paper given)

2012 On Perfection, Whitechapel Gallery, London (video shown)

2012/11 Performance Matters, Whitechapel Gallery, Toynbee Hall & The Yard, London (performances)

2011 Performance Studies International (PSi 17), Utrecht University (performance)

2010 Subjectivity & Feminisms Performance Dinner, Chelsea College of Art, UAL, London (performance)

Selected Press

Gosling, Emily. “Meet the Artist Playfully Subverting the 1990s Talk Show”, Another Magazine, June 2018

Walsh, Maria. “Acts of laughter, acts of tears: The production of ‘truth-effects’ in Oriana Fox’s ‘The O Show’ and Gillian Wearing’s ‘Self Made’”, Necsus, Spring 2017

Wilson, Jacki, ‘“Piss-Takes’, Tongue-in-Cheek Humor and Contemporary Feminist Performance Art: Ursula Martinez, Oriana Fox and Sarah Maple”, paradoxa, vol. 36, July 2015

Tembeck, Tamar, “Re-performer le matrimoine”, féministes, vol. 27, no 2, 2014

Grant, Catherine, “Fans of Feminism”, Oxford Art Journal, v 34, no 2, 2011

Rocks, Nu, “Desires Upside Down”, Devora Ran, No. 5, Dec 2010

Mulvey, Marianne, “Is There Sincerity In Hollow Speech?”, NOWISWERE, No. 3, January 2009

Moat, Hollie, “Oriana Fox, The Embodiment Workout”, Vague Paper, Issue 1, Sept 2006

Weir, Andy, “London: Temporary Contemporary Biennale”, Contemporary, Issue 73, June 2005

Lippiatt, Matt, “Oriana Fox”, Flux, May/June 2005

Selected Bibliography

Meredith A. Brown, Oriana Fox and Frances Jacobus-Parker, “Making Art with Your Kids: Generation, Cooperation and Desire in Parent–Child Artwork of the 1970s”, Collaboration and Its Discontents, Courtauld Books Online, 2017

Fox, Oriana, “The Perfect Student”, On Perfection: An Artists’ Symposium, Chicago: Intellect Books, 2013

Fox, Oriana, “The Protagonist” blog on cteditions.posterous.com, contributor 2011–2012

Fox, Oriana, “All Man, All Woman and Half Bear”, Dance Theatre Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2011

Fox, Oriana, “Once More with Feeling”, Feminist Review, issue no. 96, 2010

Fox, Oriana and Charlotte Troy (eds.), The Moon, London: CT Editions, 2009

What others are saying about Oriana:

Ventriloquism, lip-synching, and appropriation all play subversive roles in the post-feminist cocktail of Oriana Fox’s videography. Tackling television’s role as a myth-maker she finds beauty in her own perceived reflection in popular culture. But unlike Narcissus, her mini-movies beget sequels rather than tragic ends. The result is a subdued laugh track that leaves the viewer numb with joy.
– Mitchell Marco
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I watched all [of Ms.Fox’s] formulaic replays with wistful enjoyment; I didn’t know every reference, but they resonated with something so cemented in my pop cultural imaginary that I recognised every single cliché. Embarrassingly enough, I knew the feeling of wanting to be that character, making those moves, saying those lines in that American voice. Sharing a strange accord with the performer, here were our teenage fantasies resurfacing resplendent and poignant as they had been over ten years ago…

… Mediating her self-representation through clichés and her own a retro-nostalgic lens, Fox’s work turns such banality on its head. If the performance of originality and authenticity are crucial to confessional culture, then replaying a scene from a classic movie denies affirmative biographical access to the ‘shimmering truth’ of another, but opens up a different point of entry to possible truths, arguably more intriguing in their ambiguity.
– Marianne Mulvey
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Oriana Fox excavates the inheritance of the past on the present generation of young artists by disjunctively animating it through her own mimicry. Fox’s work mines the power and embarrassment the recent past has over those who follow in its wake, be it that of new generations of women who have a somewhat skeptical relation to being identified as feminist, who re-encode that term through a rampant consumerism that sweeps away the idealism of their mothers’ generation, or of the child who has become adult and still has to deal with the visitations of their parents continued determination. The reversal of generation that Oriana Fox plays out, from younger to older, folds the sequence of inheritance back on itself with sly effect, destabilising the careful chronological sequence through which the past – and the present – are carefully controlled and held in place.
– Suhail Malik
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Alluding to milestones in both pop culture and the art world, Fox’s imagery is bright and bubble-gum sweet, her voice-overs are impeccable, and most importantly her understanding of how contemporary women rely on and simultaneously shy away from their foremothers’ struggle is accurately respectful while maintaining a necessary playfulness. She invites everyone to enjoy feminism even if the word makes ‘em itch.
– Alison O’Daniel

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Oriana Fox’s Consciousness, Understanding ‘N’ Trust (2004) examines a seventies-era, second wave feminism and a history of feminist art with the nuanced advantage of a hindsight of our contemporary moment. Fox plays each character in the consciousness raising with an amazing subtlety of expression. With perfect timing she mimes lines taken from sources as diverse as The Stepford Wives to Laura Cottingham’s Not For Sale, a documentary about seventies feminist artistic practice. Other references are made to VALIE EXPORT’s ActionPants: Genital Panic (1969), Cindy Sherman Untitled (Film Stills) # 6 and #96, (1977-79) and Janine Antoni’s Loving Care (1992) and, more generally, to craft-based art production. These sources span four decades of feminist art making and thinking and are vastly different in intent, tone and attitude. Fox integrates them into a seamless conversation that is thoughtful, humorous and engaging.
– Risa Puleo