Details

Subject(s)

• Cuffie, Curtis 1955-2002—Exhibitions [Browse]
• Junk sculpture—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century—Exhibitions [Browse]
• Found objects (Art)—New York (State)—History—20th century—Exhibitions [Browse]
• Assemblage (Art)—New York (State)—History—20th century—Exhibitions [Browse]
• Ephemeral art—New York (State)—History—20th century—Exhibitions [Browse]
• Outdoor sculpture—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century—Exhibitions [Browse]
• Installations (Art)—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century—Exhibitions [Browse]

Photographer

• Abel, Katy [Browse]
• Cuffie, Curtis, 1955-2002 [Browse]
• Morton, Margaret [Browse]
• Thompson, Carol, 1923-2008 [Browse]

Artist

• Cuffie, Curtis, 1955-2002 [Browse]

Related name

• Warren, Tom (Photographer), photographer [Browse]

Contributor

• Moore, Alan, 1951- [Browse]
• Finlayson, Ciarán [Browse]

Host institution

• Buchholz Gallery (New York, N.Y.) [Browse]

Summary note

Curtis Cuffie (1955-2002) was an artist from Harstville, South Carolina, who found local notoriety in the 1990s for the thrilling and surprising way he adorned the streets of New York's East Village. His on-the-spot sculptures were woven into fences, hung from walls and sprawled along the Bowery and Cooper Square. Making use of whatever he could find to fashion works that were imaginative and real, Cuffie took the street for all it could provide: materials, an audience, a rhythm and a sense of the strange unexpectedness of public life. He was unhoused for stretches of his life, and his sculptures were viewed near to his outdoor quarters. Cuffie's art was often removed by city sanitation, but new work would spring up soon after. Though little of his art survives today, a trove of photographs documenting it keeps him in the present. This publication, the first on Cuffie, seeks to honor the artist and rectify his omission by going backward to recover that which has been left behind. It places Cuffie's own photographs and those of his companion Katy Able alongside pictures that photographers Margaret Morton and Tom Warren took of Cuffie and his art on the streets. Exhibition: Gallery Bucholz, New York, USA (03.2023).

Notes

• Title from colophon.
• "'Curtis Cuffie on the Bowery' ©1992 by Alan W. Moore ; 'This Trash Should've Been Free' ©2023 by Ciarán Finlayson"--Colophon.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (unnumbered page 7 (counting from the end)).

Creation/​Production credits

Photographers: Katy Abel, Curtis Cuffie, Margaret Morton, Carol Thompson, Tom Warren.

Contents

• [Pictorial works]
• [Statement by the artists]
• This trash should've been free / Ciarán Finlayson
• [Bibliography]
• Curtis Cuffie on the Bowery / Alan W. Moore.

Show 2 more Contents items

ISBN

• 9781953691156 (paperback)
• 1953691153 (paperback)

OCLC

1367950651

Statement on language in description

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