Donigan Cumming (born 1947) is an American-born Canadian multimedia artist who uses photography, video, drawing, sound, and text in experimental documentary films, collages, installations, and books based in Montreal, Quebec.
Since 1983, Cumming's work has contributed to Canadian and international festivals and exhibitions dealing with themes of the body, truth/fiction, taboos of representation, and social engagement.
[1] Cumming's major solo exhibitions, beginning with photography and sound installations, include Reality and Motive in Documentary Photography (New York and Paris, 1986), The Mirror, the Hammer and the Stage (Chicago, 1990), Diverting the Image (Windsor, 1993), Pretty Ribbons (Arles, 1994), Harry's Diary (New York, 1994), Les Pleureurs (Paris, 1995), La Répétition (Lausanne, 1996), Barber's Music (Ottawa, 1999), Moving Stills (Montreal, 1999 and Rotterdam, 2000), and Gimlet Eye (Cardiff, 2001).
In 2005, Moving Pictures, curated by Peggy Gale at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Toronto), presented a survey of Cumming's work in a variety of media, including video, photography, and mixed-media and featuring the large-scale encaustic collage Prologue and Epilogue,[1] which went on to be featured in Donigan Cumming: La somme, le sommeil, le cauchemar, curated by Catherine Bédard for Le Mois de la Photo à Paris (Centre culturel, Paris, 2006).
[2] A survey of Cumming's work in multimedia, photography, and video was presented in the 2008 exhibition Ex Votos at Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax).
His artist book, Kerr's Suitcase (Montreal: Maquam Press, 2016) marked a return to photographic themes of loss and recovery.
[13] In 2018, the Rendez-vous du cinéma Québecois premiered Cumming's The Seven Wonders of the World (2018), a compilation of too-close observation, animation and stolen moments,[14] in its Art and Experimentation program.