Watermelon and Chair, W. Suffield, Connecticut, 1982

Aperture is pleased to present this special limited-edition photograph by the artist Robert Cumming, in conjunction with his upcoming publication The Difficulties of Nonsense (Aperture, Spring 2016).

In Aperture’s magazine Issue #211: “Curiosity”, Sarah Bay Gachot writes that Robert Cumming’s interest in photography spawned from his interest in perception: “Cumming wanted the viewer to get to know, personally, the process of perception—perhaps to ward off the onset of visual inertia. The pictures unfold slowly over time; the more you look, the more you see.” Playing with props, proportions, unusual angles, light, and mirrors, his images invite viewers to look in—and then to second-guess what they see. Aperture is excited to publish the first survey of this significant body of work as a touchstone for contemporary artists and those interested in artwork that came out of Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Archival Pigment Print
Edition of 20 and 3 Artist’s Proofs
Paper Size: 17 x 22 inches
Image Size: 14 x 18 inches
Signed and numbered by the artist

Robert Cumming (b. 1943, Worcester, Massachusetts) is best-known for his conceptual photography of sculptures and for drawings that play with the mechanics of photographic practice. He was originally a painting student in the 1960s and received a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1967. He moved primarily into sculpture and three-dimensional art and was soon creating sculptures for the camera. His work is represented in the permanent collections of many major art museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.