Midlife,
according to conventional wisdom, is a time when women become invisible. Like
most conventional wisdom having to do with women’s lives, this bit serves more
as a warning and a threat—a kind of campfire story (“She turned forty and no
man ever looked at her again”)—than an accurate depiction of reality. But what
is true is that signs of aging in women are treated as though they ought to be
invisible, which makes the subject a natural one for Elinor Carucci, a
photographer who has long been drawn to the disconcerting closeup.
The
subject matter of most photos in Carucci’s series “Midlife” is unremarkable: a
smudge of lipstick; the knuckles of a hand; a gray hair; a ripple of cellulite.
What is unusual is the focus: the lips, photographed so closely that the hair
on the upper lip appears wiry and thick. The knuckles, wrinkled and
mountainous. The gray hair, lit against a black background, spiralling upward
to an impossible height. The rippled skin, tissuey and fragile. To treat signs
of impending middle age with such gravity and drama is both absurd and—it seems
to me—deeply honest about the kind of intense, exhausting self-monitoring that
can feel like an inescapable part of owning a female body. I love the way that
these pictures literalize a familiar sensation—the impulse to magnify a tiny,
errant part of yourself until it is wildly out of proportion—and, in doing so,
make that impulse seem not shallow or vain but simply human.
The
pictures of the body—Carucci’s body—are included in the series alongside
pictures of her family: kids in early adolescence crying or laughing; three
generations sprawled on the couch. Sometimes, Carucci’s pictures of other
people are as dizzyingly up-close as her self-portraits; other times, the kids
are blurry and in motion. Sometimes, the thing that catches the eye is the glow
of a phone, or a glass of white wine in the evening. Because that’s how it is
for many women, isn’t it? We move from being scattered to self-obsessed,
intrusive to neglectful. Our attention moves from the self to others and back
again, never in quite the right place, or at the right time, never in quite the
right amount. To feel as though the attention you’re giving yourself, and the
attention you’re giving other people, even those closest to you, is always, in
some way, out of kilter—that may be more of a foundational experience of
womanhood than anything having to do with the body.
That’s
true even on an ordinary day, but there are other kinds. One picture in
Carucci’s series is titled, bluntly, “My uterus”—it shows the organ, sitting on
a blue cloth, a label that says “Carucci, Elinor” just visible, in the upper
left-hand corner. The picture is shocking, I think, not only because of its
subject matter but because it arrives without warning: there is no preceding
photo of Carucci in a hospital gown, preparing for anesthesia, or subsequent
ones of her children gathering around her when she wakes up; there’s no photo
of the doctor, or the ensuing scar. We don’t get the story we crave, the story
that might make sense of this for us. There’s just the organ, the same color,
almost, as flamingo-pink lipstick that makes an appearance in a handful of the
other photos. It calls to mind a set of other pictures in the series, which we
might assume were crimson abstract paintings—if, in an essay about the project,
Carucci didn’t tell us they were made with her blood.
If you
are drawn to Carucci’s work, you are probably a person who knows what it’s like
to look at things too closely. You know how uncomfortable that can be, but also
how satisfying. You know what it’s like to stare at things that other people
might prefer to look away from; you are familiar with the impulse to showcase
the parts of yourself that other people would prefer that you hide. I get it.
I’m like that, too.
This
piece was drawn from the foreword to “Midlife,” by Elinor Carucci, which is out
October 8th, from Monacelli Press.
A
Photographer’s Intimate Self-Portrait of Womanhood in Middle Age. By Kristen
Roupenian. The New Yorker, September 4, 2019.
Elinor
Carucci is an accomplished photographer. To put it mildly. Her photographs are
in the collections at MOMA, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of
Fine Art, among others. She is the new master photographer at Ilford. She has
held visiting teaching positions at Princeton, Harvard, and the International
Center for Photography, and is currently a faculty member at the School of
Visual Arts. She has published three books. Recently, on assignment for The New
York Times Magazine, she photographed young adults who left their Ultra
Orthodox communities. Her photographs of Evan, a transgender man who gave birth
to a baby boy, which appeared in Time, won multiple awards. She is also a
former professional belly dancer.
But you
would literally never know any of this if you just happened upon her. With her
long, black hair, she more looks like an Israeli-bohemian-mama-Venus-goddess
than a photography powerhouse. She is also nicer and more gentle than probably
anyone else in New York City—let alone anyone in the art world, let alone
anyone in the art world in New York City—who has achieved this level of
success.
As a
reward for all this, I took her to the Israeli bakery Breads off Union Square,
because she had never been there and I thought she deserved to taste the most
delicious babka in America, especially because she’s a native Sabra. This
turned out to be a better idea than I realized. She sent me an email later that
day, saying, “Babka is so delicious. … it is dinner indeed! Sorry, kids, Mom
hates to cook.”
Periel
Aschenbrand: Tell me about this photo of Evan. Were you surprised to receive
all those awards or did you know when you took it?
Elinor
Carucci: No, I didn’t. You can’t. When I’m there with a person, there are so
many other things to think about. You’re just trying to be the best person and
photographer that you can. I told the magazine that in sensitive situations I
discuss the image with the person and I work with them until they are happy.
And if they are not happy, then it is not happening.
PA:
That’s pretty unique for a photographer, no?
EC: It
is, but with the stories I’ve been photographing for the past eight years there
are a lot of very sensitive situations. I tell the magazine, “When I am there,
I am on the side of the person.” I’m not putting the magazine first. I need to
go to sleep feeling like I’m a good photographer on many levels. So it’s not
every story. But, if it’s sensitive, then I feel it’s just the right thing to
do. And it’s about trust.
PA: I
think trust is a huge part of being a great photographer, or even someone who
is able to achieve a certain level of photographic success.
EC:
Believe it or not—and if we’re talking about Judaism here—it’s more about that
I can’t deal with any kind of guilt.
PA:
Hahaha, right.
EC: It’s
not the integrity or the photography—it’s just Jewish mother guilt. Seriously.
PA: I
believe you.
EC: And
I changed the light a few times for Evan until he said, “Yes, this is me,” and
he approved it.
PA: It’s
nice.
EC: I’m
nice.
PA: You
are nice. You’re so, so nice.
EC: It’s
not always good, but yes.
PA: It
is good. In the end, it’s good. Speaking of Jewish mothers, I love this photo of you and your mother.
EC: I
love this photo. It’s this side of my mom that I love.
PA: How
old were you started taking pictures?
EC: I
was 15 and I started by taking pictures of my mom.
PA:
Where are your parents from, originally?
EC: They
were both born in Israel. My mom is half Bukharian and half Sephardic and my
dad is half Syrian and half Italian-Moroccan. My mom is a typical Jewish mama,
everything we did, she was very supportive. Both of my parents. And my home was
very open, physically and emotionally.
PA:
Well, there’s one thing to be supportive and then another to allow your child
to take such revealing photographs of you, no?
EC: [My
mother] opened up to me.
PA:
Trust.
EC:
Again, trust, yes.
PA:
Maybe that’s why you are such an advocate for your subjects, because you were
given so much trust so early on. And your kids, are they still into letting you
photograph them?
EC: Even
more, in a way. They understand what I do and they understand what I am trying
to say and they open up to me even more. So far.
PA: So
you started taking pictures at 15 and then…
EC: I
just loved it. I played the piano and studied drama but with photography, I
really got hooked and I felt—and I still feel—there was so much I could see and
understand and absorb when I’m photographing. It’s like a different me. And I
think that’s true for many people who have passions. It’s like a new you.
PA: So
you knew you were good?
EC: I
knew I loved it. I was fortunate enough to take a class at Musrara with Avi
Sabag and for the first time someone told me, “You must do that, you’re really
good!” And now I’m in touch with him again and he didn’t know he was so
meaningful [to me]. He really helped me. Then when I was 17, I went to New York
and went to ICP and I was like, I want to be a photographer.
PA:
Amazing. And then?
EC: Then
I went to the Israeli Army and then Bezalel Academy of Art and Design for four
years and then, when I was 24, I moved to New York.
PA: I
love that. Did you have photographers whose work you really loved?
EC: Yes!
I have the three goddesses.
PA: Tell
me!
EC: Mary
Ellen Mark. Avi showed me her book, Falkland Road, the photographs of
prostitutes and I was like, OH MY GOD. Work by a woman, the initimacy, the
colors, she was really inspiring to me. And Nan Goldin and Sally Mann.
PA: Some
might say your work is provocative. I love the image of you after your
C-Section.
EC:
Thank you. I never sold a print of it and I probably never will, but it’s an
important and painful moment. I felt after I became a mom that it was very
complex. Those moments with yourself, the new you, the anger and the love. So
many emotions. So much more complex than the Madonna and child image that we
see. And I wanted to show it all, all the layers and not to shy away from happy
moments. I know it’s not trendy in the art world to talk about emotions and
love. It became very cold and very conceptual. Not movies, not music—the art
world. So I didn’t want to shy away from being sentimental and emotional. I
don’t care. It doesn’t mean the work is not sophisticated and deep. And I
didn’t want to shy away from showing the difficulties.
PA:
You’re masterful at that. You do both.
EC:
Thank you. Because life has both. I just follow life. And I want people to feel
and to connect.
PA: I’ve
always thought your work is incredibly open and super Israeli.
EC: I
think my work is very Israeli. It’s rooted in Israel, in the family, in the
warmth, in the closeness….and skin. In the openness.
PA:
Right. In Israel, when you walk into someone’s home, everyone in the family is
sitting on top of each other.
EC: And
this is my work!
PA:
Totally.
EC: I’m
trying to talk about universal things but this is where it comes from. I was
raised in Israel, in a very Israeli family.
PA:
Speaking of Israeli families, we can move into the segment where I pry into
your personal life and ask you a bunch of questions. What’s your favorite
drink?
EC:
Coffee.
PA: How
do you eat your eggs?
EC: In a
salad.
PA: How
do you drink your coffee?
EC: With
milk and two sugars.
PA:
What’s your favorite Jewish holiday?
EC:
Hanukkah.
PA: Did
you have a bat mitzvah?
EC: Yes.
I didn’t go up to the Torah but I gave a piano recital and I played Chopin.
PA: Wow!
What did you wear?
EC: I
didn’t like what I wore. I felt like such a nerd!
PA: It’s
an awkward age, to be fair. What shampoo do you use?
EC:
Whatever we get in the market.
PA:
Gefilte fish or lox?
EC:
Oshpelo! I am a Bukharian Jew. But as a
Bukharian-Moroccan-Italian-Syrian-Spanish Jew, so if I have to choose I would
choose the gefilte. My grandma used to make it because she learned it from her
Polish neighbors in Jerusalem.
PA: Five
things always in your bag?
EC: Red
lipstick, keys, credit card, and money.
PA:
Camera?
EC: No!
I never have the camera with me unless I’m going for a shoot.
PA:
Interesting. Very unusual for a photographer! Favorite pair of shoes?
EC: Flip
flops.
PA:
That’s super Israeli, too, by the way.
The
Chosen Ones: An Interview With Elinor Carucci. By Periel Aschenbrand. The Tablet Magazine, June 14, 2017.
Elinor
Caruuci is an Israeli-born photographer, living and working in New York. She first came to prominence with Diary of a
Dancer, a visual chronicle of her own experiences as a Middle Eastern
‘belly-dancer’ in and around the New York area.
In 2001, she received the prestigious International Center of
Photography Infinity Award for Young Photographer, and in 2002 was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship. She has since
continued to pursue projects that intimately explore her own life, and her
relationships with her parents, her husband, and most recently, her children. A cross-section of Carucci’s work will be on
exhibit at the James Hyman Gallery in London, from the 7th January-13th
February 2010.
AS -
Aaron Schuman
EC -
Elinor Carucci
AS: When
did you begin to take photographs, and when did you first include your family
within your work?
EC: It
was more or less at the same time. One
afternoon when I was fifteen, I had nothing to do, so I borrowed my father’s
camera. My mom was having a nap, and I
took pictures of her as she was waking up.
It really got me, so I took more pictures of my mom and my family. Then, after I did the Israeli army for two
years, I started my BFA at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, in Jerusalem.
AS:
While you were studying did you experiment beyond your family, or did you
continue to concentrate on them?
EC: No,
actually when I started I wasn’t taking pictures about my family at all; I
didn’t think that it was serious enough.
It was only after about a year and a half that one of my professors
noticed that I was using my mom or aunt in all of my assignments, whether it
was fashion or landscape. I’d been
talking a lot about trying to bring intimacy and emotions into my work, and he
remembered some of the images from my application portfolio, so he said, ‘You
can bring this into your work through your family; you don’t have to avoid
them.’ He gave me the confidence that it
was legitimate to photograph my family, so I went back to it.
AS: Was
that the first time that someone had responded so positively to those
photographs?
EC: When
I was sixteen I took a photography course in Jerusalem, and it was very
meaningful. The teacher, Avi Sabag –
who’s now the director of the Naggar School of Photography, and a very
important figure in the Israeli photo-world – was very supportive of those images. After feeling so mediocre in the other things
that I was studying – dance, drama, and so on – suddenly he responded to my
photography, and told me that I was talented.
So I owe him a big one.
AS: Have
you ever found it difficult to reveal your personal life to others, or did it
come naturally?
EC: It
really came naturally. It’s weird
because, not only does it come naturally, but also sharing those moments – even
the flaws in our lives and bodies – is somehow comforting to me.
AS: Did
your relationships change when the camera began to be a part of your life?
EC: The
situations changed – the camera was there and we responded to it. I don’t know if the relationships really
changed; if anything, it made us closer and communicate more, so maybe it enhanced
what was already there.
AS: Do
you feel that the resulting photographs are genuine, or are they performances
for a camera?
EC:
They’re really genuine. They’re so
genuine that I myself am struck by the truths that they tell me. That’s not to say that they’re not planned
sometimes; I will go back to a situation or shoot in a certain light. But if they’re false or we’re pretending to
the camera – which does happen from time to time – it doesn’t work, and I don’t
publish them. So they’re really honest,
but not always spontaneous.
AS:
There’s a long lineage of photographers who have famously focused on their
family. Is that history something that’s
informed your work at all?
EC: Of
course I’m aware of other people’s photographs, and I really admire their work;
Emmet Gowin, Richard Billingham, Sally Mann, Tierney Gearon and so on. I can’t name one person that’s been a major
influence, but I love the work of many photographers, and that includes a lot
of amateur work too. I respond to family
images of all sorts, professional and vernacular.
AS: How
would you define the difference between the two?
EC: The
difference is in the quality – light, composition and so on. Not just anyone can take a picture like Emmet
Gowin or Nicholas Nixon; those are great photographs, even if you don’t look at
the emotional content of the pictures.
But you can also see a lot of what’s happening in a family within a
snapshot or family album. And sometimes,
because of the naivety of the image, you just believe it more because the
person who was taking it wasn’t thinking about lighting, or ISO, or the gallery
where it will eventually be shown. The picture
was just taken, and then allowed to come through.
AS: But
the family album is certainly as much of a fiction as any other photographic
construct.
EC:
Yes. But even by seeing what someone is
trying to present to the camera – which exists in both professional and amateur
photography – you can learn a lot about a family.
AS: In
recent years, you’ve shifted from photographing your parents and partner, to
photographing your children. You must be
aware of the controversies that have surrounded the photographing of children,
particularly in recent decades. Was that
a consideration, and did you find it difficult to resolve these issues for
yourself?
EC: Yes,
it was very difficult, and it’s still difficult. It was the first time I wasn’t photographing adults
and I found it very different, in that as children they cannot understand the
meaning of exposing our lives, and they cannot validly agree to it. So I found that I was censoring myself a lot
more than before. I also had a lot of
conversations, with my family and even child psychologists, about how and what
to do. Eventually we came to the perfect
solution – I must continue with my work and who I am, but I also have to alter
the way that I edit the pictures.
AS:
What’s an example of a way in which you’ve censored yourself in this work?
EC:
Usually it’s nudity that can be problematic, so I censor some of that out of
the work. I’m completely behind
everything that I’m showing, but it’s not only about me anymore, so I’m trying
to do it the right way. I accept that
I’m a mother and therefore my children will eventually rebel against me, but
hopefully they’ll understand that we all have limits and weaknesses.
AS: Your
previous work was very much about you in particular – there’s a certain
self-centeredness about it. But it seems
that with the children you’ve expanded your vision quite a bit.
EC: I
really do feel that I have expanded – physically, visually, and mentally. It is something different. They are all of me. It’s really hard to explain, but every parent
will understand. It’s just what happens
with motherhood, and I’ve followed what happens naturally. So I’m glad it shows.
AS: How
do your children respond to your photographs?
EC: It’s
such a part of their lives, so they’re really used to it. I had an opening in New York a few months
ago, and many people said to them, ‘Congratulations on the show!’ So they came
over to me, and were like, ‘Mom, there’s a show going on somewhere. Let go find the show!’ I tried to tell them that people were
referring to the images on the wall, but because I’m a very silly mom and
behave like a clown with them a lot of the time, they looked at me and were
like, ‘Mom, you’re so silly.’ So they
don’t really understand, and they haven’t yet discovered that other children
don’t do the same thing. The beauty is
that if they’re crying with a runny nose, it’s not something they want to hide. It’s a part of life, and when we’re looking
at the pictures I tell them that I’m trying to capture the whole spectrum of
emotions – our lives as they are, with both the good and bad moments - and hope
that they’ll understand.
AS: Do
you have a family album?
EC:
No. My friends and family beg me to send
‘normal pictures’, so I sometimes take the ‘normal pictures’ with my cell
phone. My husband is a photographer too,
so he takes a lot of pictures. He’s
responsible for the everyday pictures – school, parties, and so on – and I
trust him to do the job.
AS: So
you’re always photographing for your art?
EC: It’s
embarrassing to admit, but yes. My
husband is usually there too. Or if he’s
not and something is happening, I do snap a few ‘normal pictures’, but not very
often.
AS:
What’s it like to be in a relationship with another photographer?
EC: He
went to school with me for photography, but he doesn’t do photography for a
living. That said, he’s a very big part
of what I do, and I couldn’t imagine sharing my life with someone who wasn’t as
involved. He’s the one person who sees
the work before it’s edited, and for me, that’s really seeing me naked. He sees everything – the bad pictures, the
ones that look false, those with bad light or bad exposures – all the horrible
images I take. It’s a part of our
togetherness. He also sees the whiny
side of me as an artist – all the complaining about this and that, which is not
the most noble side of me and what I do.
AS: Do
you think that there is a difference in the way that male and female
photographers make work about the family?
EC:
There’s definitely a difference in the way that men and women parent they’re
children. And what having a child does
to a woman is very different from what it does to a man. But because I want to keep my male friends
and avoid arguments with husband, I’m not going to go into this too
deeply. It’s a different thing for men,
so their work about it is different. For
a woman it’s a total kind of experience; it really takes all of you, from your
body, to your mind, to the erotic and sensual parts of you. It all goes to the children. So I think that it’s just more extreme for
women, and it shows in their work.
AS: You
became very successful at quite an early point in your career. Have you ever felt any pressure from the
expectations that have been placed on you as a young artist?
EC: I
don’t know, because I put so much pressure on myself that I don’t know exactly
where the pressure is coming from, and it’s not necessarily connected to
success. It’s just a pressure to do
better, in that I really want to make images that are honest and meaningful; I
want to capture those moments that I feel so strongly, before they’re gone
forever. Of course, inevitably some of
the pressure comes from the ego too – I want to have more shows, I get jealous
that people are doing better than me, and so on. I’m an artist, and I’m a competitive
person. So I guess that there’s the
artistic pressure and the career pressure.
Also, there’s the fact that I’m female and Jewish, and I guess that
Jewish women tend to demand a lot from themselves; it’s part of the way that I
was brought up. So it’s a mixture of all
of these factors.
AS: You
have an upcoming exhibition in London that includes selections from throughout
your career – Closer, Crisis, Pain and now My Children. Is this the first time that they’ve all been
grouped together?
EC:
Yes. It’s a big gallery, and it feels
like a little retrospective to me, with sixteen years worth of work
represented. I feel old all of a sudden!
AS: Do
you consider your various projects to be separate bodies of work, or do you
consider them all to be a part of one, lifetime project?
EC: There are periods in my life that seem like
complete chapters. I have Diary of a
Dancer, which is my belly-dancing work, and that’s gone; it’s not in my life
anymore. I have Crisis and Pain, which
was a very painful period, and now that’s totally gone too. And in My Children, I’m a totally different
person and have a completely different life.
So they do seem separate. Of
course it’s all my life – one long visual diary – but they do fell like
different bodies of work.
AS: You
do quite a bit of commercial work as well.
How does that relate to your personal work?
EC: The
commercial work that I do is very meaningful to me; it’s not something that I
do just to pay the bills. It pushes me
out of my zone – I’m not sure it’s a ‘comfort zone’, but it’s a zone – and
forces me to take portraits of other people. I really like the fact that
someone sends me to meet a stranger, and I have to find a connection with them
in forty-five minutes. I keep it honest
and truthful, and maintain as much integrity in my commercial work as I do in
my personal work.
AS: When
you talk about your images, you often use words like ‘honesty’ and
‘truth’. Those are quite strong words to
apply to photography, and difficult to justify in this day and age.
EC: I
know; people always tell me not to use them.
But for me it’s pretty simple. I
want the work to be honest and to tell something real, even if it’s
limited. Something authentic happens,
and that’s what I want to capture, however hard it is. I use these words a lot because, like any
other photographer, I take a lot of images that are not very good or
interesting, and it’s really hard to capture this thing; but when I do, it’s
real. Even if it’s not ‘true’, it’s
real. That’s the challenge, and ultimately, that’s what I’m after.
'All of
Me' - An Interview with Elinor Carucci. by Aaron Schuman. AaronSchuman ,
December
2009
