User:Fvlcrvm/Fulcrum Gallery

Fvlcrvm Gallery, (also known as Shakespeare's Fvlcrvm or Fulcrum) opened January, 1993 and closed February, 2002. It was founded by Valerie Monroe Shakespeare, to exhibit Actual Art exclusively.

History

The Fvlcrvm Gallery was first located at 144 Mercer Street, under the Guggenheim Museum, SoHo. Most notable for unusual exhibitions: paintings of living grass; dwarf apple trees that grew into glass sculptures; living hermit crabs that moved in glass shells; a forest of two inch, by eight foot, clear tubes, containing water & one living plant each; paintings made with rust or fluffy gold, silver and copper leaf, (unburnished); drawings of dust on white canvas; soot from candles or debris from explosions.

Fvlcrvm Gallery was home to ATOA, (Artists Talk on Art), a non-profit organization that held public forums, panel discussions & open screenings for & about art & artists, every Friday night, at the gallery. Panels at the gallery included such notables as Christo & Jean Claude; Leon Golub, Arthur Dantos, Larry Rivers, Holly Solomon, Chuck Close, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Hilton Kramer & Ivan Karp, of O.K. Harris Gallery on subjects like "Come on. What's it really Worth", (how art gets it's value) "Two Camels for your Canvas", (on bartering) "Art Virgins", (collectors on their first art purchases) and "Art & Ethics", (ethical decisions artists face).

In 1997, Fvlcrvm Gallery moved to 480 Broome Street, in SoHo, where it continued until 2002, when the effects of the 9/11 attacks caused the gallery to close. Some of the most notable works at the new location included: a glass behive; a 55 gallon glass tank of water that grew slime & algae; art that was blown up on the street, for Chinese New Year celebration, during a ban by Mayor Rudy Guiliani on explosives.

Fvlcrvm Gallery was also notable for their outrageous ads, that featured partially nude photographs of its owner, Valerie Shakespeare, often accompanied by controversial articles in Art Now Gallery Guide, under such titles as "Artists of the Aughts", "Shock Sclock", "Dust, Rust, Dirt & Smut". The ads were shown by Robert Miller Gallery, as art & Shakespeare's nude torso was featured on the cover of New York Arts Magazine, in the center of a Nazi flag, without her permission, sparking a lawsuit that became an episode of Peoples Court.

Artists exhibited at Fvlcrvm Gallery:

William Anastasi: steel plate rusts in patterns from periodic pouring of water. Helene Aylon: employing the qualities of linseed oil to “bleed” into patterns or form a “skin” that eventually breaks. Michelle Brody: living plants suspended in long, hanging tubes of water. Maria Ceppe, of Switzerland: living grass growing in patterns on canvas, or paintings made of scented soap. Dan Dempster, of Bermuda: steel drawings taken under sea, allowing salt water to "etch" the drawings into the steel; Robert DuGrenier: glass shells house living hermit crabs & glass beehive, home to thousands of bees making wax & honey sculptures. Nathan Slate Joseph, of Israel: wall pieces of pigmented and galvanized steel, weathered over many years. Yutaka Kobayashi, of Japan: rust imbedded in handmade paper or concrete & stone sculptures. Elaine Lorenze: with living plants in concrete. David Myers: lead shot enclosed in clear, interactive tabletop. Alexia Nikov, of Russia: paintings made of metal powders, patinas on canvas. Tony Reason, of England: rust in encaustic on linen. Richard Thatcher: uranium, transmuting to lead, encased in metal boxes. Merrill Wagner: steel allowed to rust in patterns; slate & rocks, weathered with pigments. Tery Fugate-Wilcox: paintings of water-soluble paint and rain; made with shotguns, explosives or lightning; “dust drawings”; metals that oxidize, or diffuse together over thousands of years; the actuality of any material.