A Perfect Match ~ Anthony Weiner & Elinor Carucci

I really could care less about Anthony Weiner - or any of the other similarly "disgraced" members of the NY Congressional delegation over the past few years. Like me and many others, these people have personal foibles. That does not make them heinous. But neither does it mean that an orchestrated media campaign is sufficient to restore some presumed privilege or right to a place in public life. Weiner is best known for a personal train wreck; how does he parley that into political office? Why not get a job, be thankful that you have a smart, talented, attractive woman in your life - despite your best efforts - and a sweet son to raise? That would be a great life.

What initially caught my eye here and made me pay attention to this story - in which The Times is playing its duly appointed role in Weiner's PR campaign - is that the editors have placed Huma Abedin center stage in the cover photo. And, of course, who better to document this blurring of personal and public than Elinor Carucci, a photographer who is a master of that fatuous genre.

Best Shots (97) ~ Elinor Carucci

(124) Elinor Carucci ~ My mother and I (20 January 2010).

It has been a while since The Guardian has run an installment of this series. (They've done a couple of video version, but I had decided against posting to those.) I thought perhaps they had decided to discontinue following a long run. I'd have missed it. Then they start up again with this! I won't rehearse my objections to Carucci and her work. Let's just say (again) that I really do like this series and want to keep linking to it. So Elinor gets a pass.

Hey! Look At ME! (Part 3 or 4)

At The Guardian today is an article and accompanying slide show in which Sean O'Hagan comments on the opening in London of a new exhibition of work by Elinor Carucci. O'Hagan worries that Carucci's work is too focused on her children and that that might be exploitative. Ultimately, he concludes that the work is "responsible." Actually, I think this hand-wringing is pretty wide of the mark. The problem with Carucci's work, as I have said here regularly [1] [2] [3], is that it is so self-absorbed as to be wholly uninteresting. What O'Hagan misses is that the subject of each of Carucci's images is the photographer herself. This is true even where she herself doesn't appear in the photograph. In short, she treats her children (and parents and husband) as accessories to her own narcissism. As if to punctuate this interpretation, here is the final sentence of The Guardian review: "And, as Carucci acknowledged on Woman's Hour, the really intriguing question here is not just what the children will think of the work when they grow up, but what they will think of their mother." That is why Carucci's work is objectionable.

Hey! Look At Me! (Some More)

Eden Crying #3, 2006.
Photograph © Elinor Carucci.

I have a three year old son. When August is crying and snot is flowing from his nose like this what do I do? Do I say, "Wait a sec while Papa gets his camera ... Don't sniff or wipe your nose on your sleeve!"? No, I get a tissue or use my shirt and wipe his nose and give him a hug and a kiss. So I am afraid to say that, despite what the folks at The New York Times think, Elinor Carucci's photography actually is not something "which any parent can relate to."

I have posted on Carucci here and here before. No need to do any more work then necessary; I'll just repeat myself. Carucci "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." True to form, even though her latest project is called "My Children," Carucci still manages to get into the picture naked

Unfortunately, the folks at The Times couldn't find any other photographer in the entire city to write about this week. It must be a really slow week in the NYC art world.

Piling Bad Work Upon Bad

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote this post on the vapid work of Elinor Carucci. Well, this evening I was reading this article and this one (linked from a post at Conscientious) both of which are critical, and rightly so, of this recent cover article (and especially the accompanying photos) from The New York Times Magazine. Note the photo credit. Enough said.

Emily Gold ~ Photograph Elinor Carucci: Copyright 2008
The New York Times Company.

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?