Tery Fugate-Wilcox (born 1944) is an American artist, painter and sculptor, founder of the Actual Art movement.
Contents |
Born Raymond Terry Fugate in Kalamazoo, Michigan to Alberta Alaria Fugate, (Italian/German) & Ray Fugate, (Sioux/French).
Ray Fugate, of the Blue Fugates in Troublesome Creek, Kentucky was killed on Okinawa in World War II, shortly after his son was born. Raymond Terry was left with his maternal grandparents until he was six, when his mother, remarried with a baby daughter returned to retrieve him. At age sixteen, Raymond was formally adopted by his stepfather, Dale Wilcox, becoming Raymond Terry Fugate-Wilcox.[1] He attended Barbour Hall junior military academy, situated within Nazareth convent, in Kalamazoo, Michigan; then Howe Military School, Howe Indiana & Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan.[2] In 1963, Fugate-Wilcox married Valerie Monroe Shakespeare [2] who convinced him to drop "Raymond", changing his name to Terry Fugate-Wilcox & left college to pursue a career as an artist.(See "It's the Artist's Life for me!" a memoir by Tery Fugate-Wilcox & Valerie Monroe Shakespeare.[1]
While in Kalamazoo, Fugate-Wilcox exhibited his work at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI; University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, IL; Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI and Kalamazoo Art Center, Kalamazoo, MI [1967]; Battle Creek Art Center, Battle Creek, MI [1966] and at the Detroit Institute of Arts Competition, Detroit, MI [1965].
In 1968, Fugate-Wilcox and his wife Valerie Shakespeare moved to New York City, when Conceptual Art was at its peak. In reaction to his frustration about the state of the art world, Fugate-Wilcox picked a non-existent address on 57th Street, then the center of art in New York, and created the fictitious Jean Freeman Gallery.[3] "Things had become so ridiculous, that I knew I had to do something to expose the political structure of the art scene."[3] It was called "the conceptual artwork that ended conceptual art" by Nancy Foote in an article, "Ripping off the Art Magazines", Art in America, (the title referred to the unpaid advertising bills - "all forgiven" [4] left from the creation of the artwork).[5]
Brian O'Doherty publicly announced Art in America's donation on the Today Show, NBC, on which he appeared with Tery Fugate-Wilcox and anchor, Frank McGee, to discuss the Conceptual artwork.[6] The Jean Freeman Gallery was exposed, before its completion, by Grace Glueck in a New York Times piece "The Non Gallery of No Art" (24 January 1971).[4] The nonexistent gallery continued until the end of the 1970 art season, when Fugate-Wilcox published an announcement from the Jean Freeman Gallery saying: "26 West 57th Street does not exist".[7] John Perrault announced that he "...knew it all along."[8] and many wrote letters to the gallery saying, "There is a rumor you don't exist. Is that true?"[4]
In 1971, Tery Fugate-Wilcox donated an "r" to the Irish cause, changing his name, yet again, to Tery Fugate-Wilcox. (Shortly after, Brian O'Doherty, then publisher of Art in America became "Patrick Ireland" in support of the same cause.) Also in 1971, Tery and his wife, Valerie submitted nude passport photos. Although the photos were taken from the shoulders up, the couple was refused passports and sparked an investigation by the Internal Security Commission, the new investigative branch for House Un-American Activities Committee, and considerable controversy.[9] In 1973, Fugate Wilcox and his wife, Valerie found a lawyer willing to help them file for a "Conceptual Divorce". Although the divorce was never actually finalized and they were never separated, Valerie took back her maiden name, to become Valerie Shakespeare again, and they celebrated with a huge "Divorce Reception" complete with a chocolate frosted devil's food wedding cake, with the bride and groom climbing down off the top tier.[10]
In 1976, they combined with a group of artists, tired of fixing up illegal lofts only to have the landlord double the rent. They bought an old warehouse building on Worth Street, in what would eventually become Tribeca, and created the ultimate studio loft: (5000 square feet, 18-foot (5.5 m) ceiling, 2,500-square-foot (230 m2) terrace and private garage).[11]
Tery Fugate-Wilcox found his artistic voice in a genre that eventually became known as Actual Art. For an early show in Battery Park, Fugate-Wilcox painted 15 nosecones from the defunct nuclear "Mace" cruise missiles, in bright colors of red, blue, yellow or green. Each was then coated with a thin overlay of silver paint and spectators were encouraged to touch the sculptures, thus wearing off the silver, to reveal the colors beneath.[12]
He later expanded the idea of "Touch" sculptures to include metal works, plated with layers of copper, silver and gold; then sculptures and "paintings" of gold, silver or copper leaf, left unburnished, or "fluffy", so that colors beneath the leaf would emerge, only after the leaf was worn off by the touch of spectators.
In "Spanish Harlem" an uptown area of New York City,a public vote, initiated by Doris Freedman, director of the Municipal Arts Society, (later changed to Public Art Fund) in which artists were commissioned to make models of their proposed work, which were then displayed in local schools, banks & on an "Art Bus", allowed citizens, including children, to vote on the public art to be chosen for their neighborhood. Fugate-Wilcox won the vote and was commissioned to create the sculpture 3000 A.D. Diffusion Piece (1974) in J. Hood Wright Park, in the Washington Heights area of New York City.[13] The sculpture is composed of several stacked and bolted plates of magnesium and aluminum, which Fugate-Wilcox estimates will fuse together, by a process known as diffusion at or around the year 3000 AD.[14]
Fugate-Wilcox also created the public sculpture Weathering Triangle (1984) at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Waverly Place in Manhattan. Although the work had been approved by the New York City Landmarks Commission, as a temporary work of art, the local Community Board of Greenwich Village had a long-standing ban on art and caused a sensation, when the work became "criminal art", (Buildings Department violations are prosecuted in criminal court in New York City). As owner of the property, Valerie Shakespeare was prosecuted several times for failure to obtain a Building Permit, despite the fact that the Buildings Department had told her the sculpture required no permit.
The nature of a Buildings Department violation is such that, as long as the violation exists, the violator can continually be brought back to criminal court, no matter how many times the case is dismissed. Finally, her lawyer from Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, demanded a trial to stop what he termed "harassment". At trial, the case was summarily dismissed, "with prejudice", (meaning the case cannot be prosecuted again) by the judge, for failure to make a prima facia case, that is, failure to prove the sculpture required a building permit. In the meantime, the City of New York obtained a default judgement on a million-dollar lawsuit against Ms. Shakespeare. With the help of Kaye and Scholer, (through Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts) the City eventually gave up the suit and the sculpture was moved to the home of a private collector in New Jersey.[15]
Fugate-Wilcox installed a "Warping Wood" sculpture in the Brooklyn Terminal Exhibition, that ran from September through November 1983. The work, consisting of plain two-by-fours resting on end, upright, in a stepped base, also made of two-by-fours, took advantage of variations in humidity to warp and "flower out" when dry & "close back up" when the environment became more humid.[16]
Fugate-Wilcox contributed a similar piece, "Weathering Wood", to an outdoor sculpture exhibition at Saunder's Farm, in Garrison, New York in [2007], where sculptures shared the bucolic pastures with several dozen cows. Surprisingly, over 400 visitors came to the opening of the show, which could only be accessed by a long winding dirt road.
In 1989, Fugate-Wilcox created the 40-foot-tall (12 m) sculpture for Prudential, consisting of 5 various sized tetrahedrons, in a family grouping. Particles of copper, brass, bronze, steel & iron, were embedded just under the surface, as the wet concrete was applied, in the manner of a fresco.[17] The work sat in the center of a reflecting pool and as water from the built-in fountain flowed over the sculptures, the colors of blue, turquoise, green, ochre and reddish browns migrated up to create patterns on the surface. The work was in the main lobby of Gateway 4, of the Prudential, in Newark, New Jersey, until 1998, when Prudential sold the building, the fountain was dismantled by the artist and sold to a private collector.[18]
In addition to various public sculptures, Tery Fugate-Wilcox was commissioned to create art pieces on several walls of buildings in NYC. The most notable of these was the "Holland Tunnel Wall" at the New York entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The huge, 60-foot (18 m) by 80-foot (24 m) billboard space was donated by the owner of the building & the work was painted by riggers of the Apollo painting Company, who donated their services, as well, to the sponsor of the work, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The first layer was red epoxy paint; the second layer, yellow latex; the third layer, blue oil-based alkyd; the fourth layer, green pigmented shellac & the fifth, final layer was whitewash of white, water-soluble casein paint. All of the paint was also donated by the manufacturers, under the auspices of the LMCC.
The artist's intention was to use paints that were incompatible with each other, so that as the work weathered, all the different colors would emerge, in natural patterns. The work was in place for over ten years. When the sub-structure of the plywood billboard eventually gave way to the effects of weathering & had to be dismantled, the artist was able to reclaim many of the weathered plywood panels which, in turn became individual works of art.[19]
Another wall piece was the Weathering Wall, (1981) facing Houston Street, on the corner of Lafayette Street in NYC. Sponsored by the Public Art Fund, the white wall was embedded with narrow, 3 inch by 3-foot (0.91 m) bars of copper, brass, bronze. iron & steel. As the wall weathered, the rain would carry corrosion particles down from the bars, creating patterns of color beneath each bar. Fugate-Wilcox also designed the interior of the loft building, known as "Weathering Heights" after the wall sculpture. Included in his designs were a fluorescent light chandelier in the lobby, unique fluorescent wall fixtures on each floor and a new elevator with floors designated by Roman numerals.
Fugate-Wilcox's current project is the San Andreas Fault Sculpture Project, which will use plate tectonics to create a work of art on desert land owned by the artist in the Indio Hills near Palm Springs, California.[20]
The work will comprise a 1-acre (4,000 m2) monolith of highly durable low-exothermic air-entrained concrete (20 ft deep (6.1 m), 188 ft wide (57 m), 232 ft long (71 m), and weighing 65,000 tons) spanning the fault and anchored to the bedrock on either side of it.[21]
As the fault moves [some 2–3 inches (51–76 mm) a year] it is intended that the block will break into two golden rectangles that will continue to move past each other, with the stated intent of "using the Earth itself, as a tool to make the movement of massive continents visible on a scale that can be understood in human terms".[22]
Intended to be visible from the tram overlooking the area, the Project is to be a centre for education and information about plate tectonics, earth sciences and environmental concerns. A gallery about the Project will be maintained at the site and in Palm Springs, and the Project will be available for use to raise monies for other related charitable causes, with access to the top for events and fundraising. The site will also be maintained in the spirit of a public park, and the Project intends to restore the surrounding desert, subject to past disruptions, to its former natural beauty.[23]
The work is sponsored by the Actual Art Foundation, a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)-3 organization, founded in 1982. The Project is supported entirely by donations from art patrons "with a desire to establish a deeper more meaningful dialogue with the Earth".[24]
Fugate-Wilcox' work is in the collections of: the City of New York; Guggenheim Museum; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Australia;[25][26][27] the Smithsonian Collection.[28] Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Indianapolis Museum of Art; J. Patrick Lannan Foundation; Damson Oil Co.; American Council for the Arts; University of Hartford; National Shopping Centers; Western Michigan University; Detroit Institute of Art; Chicago Art Institute; and several major sculpture installations in New York City, Newark, New Jersey and around the world. His work has been in forty one-person shows, most recently at Shakespeare's Fvlcrvm in SoHo and at Art House, Candlewood Lake Art Center, in Connecticut. His work is in the collections of over 200 art patrons internationally; he is a NEA laureate and is listed in Marquis Who's Who, 2008. Tery Fugate-Wilcox is the author of a new book; "It's the Artist's Life for Me!" written with Valerie Monroe Shakespeare, his wife & life partner.[29]