Robert Cumming: The Difficulties of Nonsense

Robert Cumming: The Difficulties of Nonsense is the first comprehensive publication to survey the artist's landmark conceptual photographs of the 1970s, work that remains a touchstone for artists still working with illusion and staged fiction.

Working from Los Angeles, Cumming built props and functional-looking but ultimately useless constructions expressly to be photographed with his 8-by-10 camera, manipulating proportion, angle, light, and mirrors so that a picture invites a viewer to look, then look again and second-guess what they saw. The 184-page hardcover monograph gathers 135 black-and-white and color photographs alongside an essay by Sarah Bay Gachot and an interview with the artist by David Campany.

Cumming trained first as a painter before moving into sculpture and photography, and his layered, trick-of-the-eye images sit at the intersection of conceptual art, photography, and printmaking; his work is held in major museum collections including MoMA. He died in 2021.