Camnitzer is a conceptual artist, and his work explores questions of identity, arising from his experience as a Latin American artist living in exile in the United States.

He often uses humor to cast familiar concepts in a new light. In this photograph, his own face provides the terrain for a miniature world of his imagination.

He was born in Lübeck, Germany, to Jewish parents. In 1939 his family fled the Nazi regime for Uruguay. After studying sculpture in Montevideo, Camnitzer moved to New York. There he quickly became part of an influential community of Latin American artists that included Liliana Porter, Wifredo Lam, and José Guillermo Castillo.

When Uruguay fell under a brutal dictatorship in 1973, Camnitzer suddenly found himself in exile. He has described himself since then as "floating between two cultures," writing: "My country doesn’t exist anymore anywhere, except in my memory."