Details

Subject(s)

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

Photographer

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

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

Artist

• Cuffie, Curtis, 1955-2002 [Browse]

Related name

• Gallery Bucholz (New York) [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.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN

• 9781953691156 (paperback)
• 1953691153 (paperback)

OCLC

1367950651

Other standard number

• 40031945948

RCP

C - S

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