Additional Images

Provenance:

Courtesy of the artist.

The Work & Artist Bio

The artist’s own description of Untitled (July 16, 2021), 2022, is the clearest statement on this confoundedly appealing image of death and decay. Perhaps it’s our unfortunate lack of empathy for the natural world that has brought us to the dispassionate state where we read the image of a decaying bird as simply beautiful. Here is Donigan Cumming on the series, “Even as the Falcon Plummets” in which this image is included, “The series began,” he wrote, “as a reflection on flight and the inevitable Icarian tumble back to earth, the photographs evoke oppression and violence as well as flights of the imagination, even in states of confinement.” The images hold their beauty.

Since 1986, when Donigan Cumming’s first major cycle, Reality and Motive in Documentary Photography was launched in New York and Paris, theorists and curators have engaged with his provocative oeuvre. His monographs and artist’s books include The Stage (Maquam, 1991; Errata, 2014); Pretty Ribbons (Stemmle, 1996); Splitting the Choir: The Moving Images of Donigan Cumming (CFI, 2011: Web Edition, 2023); Donigan Cumming: Monographie (Dazibao, 2012), and Kerr’s Suitcase, Maquam, 2015). Numerous solo exhibitions and retrospectives have been organized by museums, galleries, and festivals, including the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; the Art Gallery of Windsor; the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Chapter, Cardiff; Galerie Vu, Quebec; Les Rencontres internationales de la photographie, Arles; Les Cents jours d'art contemporain, Montréal; and the Centre culturel canadien, Paris. Leading film festivals and centres, such as the International Film Festival, Rotterdam; Visions du Réel, Nyon; Anthology Film Archives, New York; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; and Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal have featured his video work in dedicated programs and exploding cinema installations. Private and institutional collectors of Cumming’s work include the Madeleine Millot-Durrenberger Collection, Strasbourg; the Sylvio Perlstein Collection, Antwerp; the Teutloff Photo + Video Collection, Bielefeld; Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Imago Mundi Collection, Treviso; the National Gallery of Canada; Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Cinémathèque québécoise, Montréal; Vancouver Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Windsor; Winnipeg Art Gallery; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Fonds national d'art contemporain (FNAC), Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne; Museet For Fotokunst, Odense; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Cumming is a fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. A new photographic series of still lifes, “Even as the Falcon Plummets,” featured in Border Crossings (Issue 160), comprises immersive prints and a boxed set (2022), and has been followed by a bookwork, Falcon’s Guide (2023).

Even as the Falcon Plummets, Border Crossings Issue 160, 2022

Donigan Cumming, Border Crossings Issue 147, 2018

Endgames: Donigan Cumming's Subverted Narratives, Border Crossings Issue 94, 2005

Pretty Ribbons: Photographs by Donigan Cumming, Border Crossings Issue 37, 1991

Artist's Website