Hey! Look At Me!
In The Guardian yesterday you can find this story on photographer Elinor Carucci who seems to specialize in providing too much visual information about herself, her family, and her relationships. This sort of exhibitionism strikes me a wholly self-indulgent and completely uninteresting. Carucci, an Israeli immigrant to NYC, claims that "No place is home now" and that her photography affords her "a personal point of view." Fine.
"And If I Don’t Get Enough Attention" (2002) © Elinor Carucci
In this appropriately titled self-portrait Carucci appears with her husband. She doesn't provide much indication about why anyone should care. I don't.
One point of comparison would be Annie Leibovitz who was widely criticized for over-sharing in her recent book A Photographer's Life. (See my earlier post on this.) But Leibovitz offers the personal work in that collection as some sort of exercise in remembrance in the wake of her friend and lover Susan Sontag's death. She largely has focused her creative energies on others and so seems to me to not even inhabit the same terrain of self-absorption as Carucci. (Nor is Carucci likely to be in the same category talent-wise as Leibovitz; we'll see.) I am not much interested in the sort of celebrity photography that Leibovitz produces. I guess what I find irritating about Carucci is that she seems to be trying, through revelation of her now-not-private-life, to elbow her way in to the celebrity crowd, most of whom are vacuous anyhow. Her work, which seems to be hailed as 'emotionally intense,' 'revealingly intimate' and so forth, seems to me like it will be in its element among the celebs. Why not work at becoming an accomplished photographer and accept whatever recognition or attention follows from that?
"And If I Don’t Get Enough Attention" (2002) © Elinor CarucciIn this appropriately titled self-portrait Carucci appears with her husband. She doesn't provide much indication about why anyone should care. I don't.
One point of comparison would be Annie Leibovitz who was widely criticized for over-sharing in her recent book A Photographer's Life. (See my earlier post on this.) But Leibovitz offers the personal work in that collection as some sort of exercise in remembrance in the wake of her friend and lover Susan Sontag's death. She largely has focused her creative energies on others and so seems to me to not even inhabit the same terrain of self-absorption as Carucci. (Nor is Carucci likely to be in the same category talent-wise as Leibovitz; we'll see.) I am not much interested in the sort of celebrity photography that Leibovitz produces. I guess what I find irritating about Carucci is that she seems to be trying, through revelation of her now-not-private-life, to elbow her way in to the celebrity crowd, most of whom are vacuous anyhow. Her work, which seems to be hailed as 'emotionally intense,' 'revealingly intimate' and so forth, seems to me like it will be in its element among the celebs. Why not work at becoming an accomplished photographer and accept whatever recognition or attention follows from that?
2 Comments:
I don't seen any similarities between Carruci and Leibovitz. Carucci's work is in the vain of Nan Goldin and Ryan Mcginley, and Dash Snow: snapshots of the hipster elites.
Heh. I like that:
"snapshots of the hipster elites".
Good reads, both of these posts. I have an uncomfortable relationship (sic) with all of these celebrity feminists, but Sontag in particular. She doesn't speak the life or experience of any of the women photographers that I know. But then she shares so much more with pop stars and suchlike, I suppose. It's all rather vacuous.
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