“Women, at some point, disappear from art, from the media, from popular culture, from high art.” Says artist Elinor Carucci, whose work appears in the exhibit.
Israeli artist, Elinor Carucci’s work is nestled in the corner of the fourth floor of the NYC Fotografiska exhibit — Nude: From a female-identifying perspective. One of the black-trimmed frames holds a self-portrait of Carucci herself. The artist stands at the center of the frame looking squarely into the camera’s lens, her salt and pepper hair slicked back into a bun, the image cut off just below her bare chest. Even a glance at the photo exudes the rawness, intimacy, and authenticity often missing from nudity portrayals.
The photography museum, Fotografiska’s Nude: From a female-identifying perspective, which opened in February in Manhattan, serves as a portrayal of the naked body through “beautiful, disruptive, and experimental lenses, seeking to subvert the historically predominant male gaze and celebrate the human form.” Carucci is one of 30 female-identifying artists from 20 different countries to explore the naked body in contemporary photography in the exhibit.
The exhibition offers examples of the “new nude,” one not skewed and owned by the media and the male gaze. For the exhibit, Carucci displayed a selection of photos from her series entitled Midlife, a project that spanned seven years and documented her experiences growing older alongside her family, her experiences in relationships, and those in illness and growth.
“Once I felt I completed it, I was even more determined to put this body of work out there because I felt that there isn’t work about being middle-aged, especially for women,” Carucci told Mission. “It was not easy to publish, and many publishers or galleries were a little nervous as they thought there would be no clientele and no audience. There was a big audience.”
One of Midlife’s more emotionally moving photographs is a piece entitled “My Uterus.” Carucci captured the photo following her hysterectomy in 2015. In the photo, Carucci’s uterus is lensed on a blue-cloth-laden table, giving the viewer a rawer and deeper view of a woman’s body than the typically superficial portrayal.
“The fact that I published Midlife was a kind of political statement because women, at some point, disappear from art, from the media, from popular culture, from high art,” she says. “There are many wonderful male artists and photographers, but what we’re lacking is the point of view of women looking at themselves. A man could never photograph a uterus right after a hysterectomy.” Carucci’s photos in the exhibit are portraits of her, her husband, and her children.
Elsewhere in the exhibit, Nude showcases striking images of the Black male body photographed by American photographer Dana Scruggs. In one photo, Scruggs’ subject, Roze Traore, lay naked sprawled out on a white sand beach, while in another, the camera closes in on Traore’s face covered in sand. According to Scruggs’ artist’s statement, the photos investigate the emotional vulnerability and physical grace of the Black male form. She notes, “being coveted for their athleticism, cultural innovation, and physical characteristics but also reviled, feared and persecuted for their existence.”
Other work in the exhibit ranges from Chinese photographer Yushi Li’s My Tinder Boys series, for which she photographed men she met through the online dating app, to Japanese photographer Momo Okabe’s exploration of the trans body.
Since finishing Midlife, Carucci has been working on a new project, for which she’s been photographing her children as they’ve grown up, and her experience raising them. Like her fellow artists who feature in Fotografiska, Carucci continues to bring light to the realities of the female experience that have been ignored in art for centuries.
