Donigan Cumming - The Stage Republished
Errata Editions is set to republish Donigan Cumming’s The Stage on August 31, 2014 as part of their Books on Books series. This challenging book of photography was originally published in 1991 and includes an essay by Border Crossings’ Senior Contributing Editor, Robert Enright. Books on Books No. 19 offers a complete facsimile of this extremely rare, remarkable and little-known Canadian photo book.
To order your copy of The Stage, click here.
Page 58, detail. Border Crossings Issue 45.
Cumming conceived of his project in the early 80s as a cycle of black-and-white photographs that would attack “the conceits and mannerisms of documentary photography. My position at that time was that the whole edifice of social documentary photography needed to be torn down and rebuilt into a form that acknowledged reflexivity and admitted self-interest on the part of the maker.” He was attacking documentary’s trademark – the illusion of objectivity.
-From Robert Enright’s “The Overwhelming Quotidian”, an essay introduction to The Stage.
Photographs of Nettie Harris from “Pretty Ribbons,” photographic portfolio, Border Crossings Issue 37.
Ours is a culture obsessed by youth and beauty; it is meticulous and narcissistic and has neither the patience nor the constitution for images which take away the high sheen of vibrancy from its self-image. -From Robert Enright’s introduction to Pretty Ribbons, Issue 37.
Donigan Cumming in Border Crossings’ Issues 37, 94, 114 & 119
Border Crossings publications with Cumming:
To sift through our Index for more on Donigan Cumming and any number of other artists, see here.
Back issues are available for purchase and make for a great addition to any artistic library.
Film still from Donigan Cumming’s Too Many Things, 2010, colour video, sound. 36 minutes. Image copyright of the artist. Courtesy of Video Data Bank, Chicago, and Videographe, Montreal. Border Crossings Issue 119.
Donigan Cumming, Barber’s Music (detail), 1999, gelatin silver print, Lent by the artist. Courtesy: Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa. Border Crossings Issue 71.
Donigan Cumming, Chores, 2000, 12 gelatin silver prints, soundtracks, dimensions vary. Courtesy the artist, Montreal. Border Crossings Issue 86.
Epilogue, 2005, mixed media on panel, 2.6 x 4.4 m. Border Crossings Issue 94.
Prologue, 2005, mixed media on panel, 2.6 x 4.4 m. Photographs courtesy the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto. Border Crossings Issue 94.
Prologue, detail. Border Crossings Issue 94.
