As a youth, in the Bronx, artist Kool Koor was inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s futuristic vision for the island of Manhattan. Today that formative inspiration comes full circle with an art exhibition by Koor in the miniature-earth dome designed by Buckminster Fuller himself.
KOOL KOOR presents: AXION SYMMETRA
A new solo exhibition by Kool Koor (Charles William Hargrove Jr.), will be on view in the Fuller Dome Gallery, opening June 21, 2026 (Summer Solstice) through mid September, 2026
“R-Bot” by artist Kool Koor for the “Rooks and Robots” show 2021
This exhibition presents a new body of work developed on site and revealed in its entirety at the moment of opening. Conceived as a complete spatial system, AXION SYMMETRA transforms the dome into an immersive environment wherepainting, structure, and reflection converge. Emerging from the New York graffiti movement of the early 1980s, Kool Koor developed a distinctive visual language he describes as “Futuristic Symbolism.”
His work moves beyond writing as text, evolving into a complex system of calligraphic abstraction — a continuous field of movement, rhythm, and structure. In AXION SYMMETRA, this language enters a new phase. Through modular compositions, mirrored surfaces, and layered transparency, the work expands beyond the canvas into space. Reflection and light extend the painted line into an infinite field, dissolving the boundary between object and environment. The exhibition’s setting is integral to its meaning. The Buckminster Fuller Dome — a structure defined by geometric precision and visionary architecture — resonates directly with the principles underlying Kool Koor’s work. Influenced in his youth by Buckminster Fuller’s proposals for dome structures over urban environments, the artist now situates his own visual system within a realized architectural form.
Created on site but concealed during its formation, AXION SYMMETRA is revealed as a fully realized environment on the day of its opening. The exhibition unfolds as a unified field — a system of balance, symmetry, and movement — where Kool Koor’s calligraphic language aligns with the geometry of the dome itself. As noted by critic Donald Kuspit, Kool Koor’s work expands abstraction through a symbolic system rooted in motion, perception, and coded expression. AXION SYMMETRA extends this trajectory, positioning the artist’s practice at the intersection of graffiti, abstraction, architecture, and cosmology.
