elinor carucci

"the camera is, in a sense, both a way to get close, and to break free. It is a testimony to independence as well as a new way to relate to the world.”
- elinor carucci




Carucci’s photographs are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the International Center of Photography, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others. Selfridges, the famous department store, will be showing commissioned photographs by Carucci in London and Manchester for their month-long spectacle BODY CRAZE, a project that sets out to expose our fascination with the human body in all its rich and rare diversity.

"Sometimes, photographing came before the logical understanding and my consciousness regarding life around me. Sometimes, it confused my world of pictures with the real world. On other occasions, the camera "saw" what was happening in front of it before I did. Like someone else standing aside, the photos said: Pay attention, there's something here which you did not grasp by yourself - ?wake up!

Surpassingly, through the small details, the photographs began to extend beyond my family frontiers. In the "small" near me I could see the "big" the "far", and go back to observing my intimate surroundings. Differently. Taking pictures of them, through them.

My mother was the first person I ever photographed and I still take pictures of her obsessively. My mother was and is my first connection to the world, the relationship we have is a very special and ambivalent one. I used to think that the struggles and reactions from my childhood would eventually go away and my mother's power over me would dissipate, but I realize, as I get older, that it is basic and stronger than me. Only in the last few years, I began to see my mother, not only as a strong person, but also more as a human being with anxieties, weaknesses, and the natural fear of aging. It scares me. Mom has to be total security, the 'only' security. Power, beauty and femininity. Perfect. Still today, I feel that her power is unlimited and she can do anything for me, she is invincible. But when she prepared me for the world, she showed me the world through her eyes and taught me that there are things that she cannot do for me. My mother put her lipstick on my lips and hoped that it would protect me.

I once thought that to take pictures of my mom would help me overcome the fear of time passing, but the photography only shows me the cruelty of time and even the pictures of faces without wrinkles do not comfort me."