Robert Cumming: An Interview

Robert Cumming (b. 1943) is an American photographer/sculptor/bookmaker who borrows from the artifice of theatrical sets to construct his elaborate and often absurd images. He has also published several books of photography and narration.  Central to his work is his desire to remind us that we are looking at a photograph, and not at the thing being photographed. His captions sometimes draw on a photograph's narrative aspects or are used to mislead the viewer.

“I started to go against the avant-garde ‘less is more’ and began to work on more varied levels—sculpture, photography, and writing that has a number of layers. Illusion worked in under that guise,” Cumming says in this interview with Alex Sweetman.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1976.