ARTISTS and exhibitions at 4th Street Photo Gallery

Press release, New York City, Aug.3, 2000. "Heaven is under your Feet."

Sculptures by internationally known artist Curtis Cuffie on view at

The 4th Street Photo Gallery, 67 East 4th Street (between 2nd and 3rd

Avenue) through Aug. 30.

This could be one of the most important shows of the summer, for

as gallery founder and director Alex Harsley states "everyone's been

waiting for Curtis to show up." In the tradition of rural southern yard

shows, bottle trees, and decorated graves turned urban, Cuffie's

constructions have bemused viewers ever since he first began to make art

in the streets of the East Village nearly fifteen years ago. This exhibit

will include sculptures from the mid to late 90s, with selections from the

"Dreamcatcher" and "Trumpet that Never Stops Blowing" series, and new

work. Highlights include "Thomas Edison," "May Pole," "Church," "Jazz,"

"Red Dress," and "Alex in Wonderland."

Curtis Cuffie remains "one of the undiscovered originals of the

art world," according to Aarne Anton of American Primitive, one of the

first venues to show Cuffie's work. Long admired by art world

intelligentsia, Cuffie's art has inspired an impressive roster of leading

performance and installation artists including most notably, David Hammons

and Roger Guenveur Smith. Cuffie's sculpture has been exhibited at Exit

Art, Tribes Gallery, Flamingo East, and other venues. It has been featured

on the cover of The New York Times Sunday Magazine, displayed by

independent curator Kenny Schachter, and written about in Artforum, Art

and Antiques, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The New York Press,

and other publications. From October 6 through September 2001, one of

Curtis Cuffie's sculptures will be included in the exhibit "Treasures of

the Soul: Who is Rich?".

Alex Harsley describes how "at any time throughout the past four

or five hundred years in Africa, Curtis Cuffie would have been an

important asset to his community with his prolific ability to communicate

with ancestral spirits. At the same time his work is always linked into

something happening now." Regarding why he makes art, Cuffie states, "I'm

a Taurus. Tauruses love beauty."