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W Magazine
Eye Candy

8 Portraits of the Supposedly Invisible: A Woman Who’s Reached Middle Age

The idea that women will become invisible when they reach middle age isn’t so much a universal truth but a veiled threat—”a kind of campfire story,” as the writer Kristen Roupenian puts it in the foreword of Midlife, a new book by Elinor Carucci, who took the discomfiting photo that accompanied Roupenian’s viral short story Cat Person. But there is truth, she continues, to the fact “signs of aging in women are treated as though they ought to be invisible.” Suffice to say, in Midlife, that isn’t the case: Carucci captures the inevitable unapologetically—and so effectively that one wonders why she ever would apologize in the first place. In a different context, photos of pubic hair and mammogram stickers might be jarring, but here, they’re simply closeups of Carucci’s portrait of her personal life, made up of scenes like her husband seated at the kitchen table, using his laptop sans shirt. The photos’ titles, too, are refreshingly straightforward; My Uterus, for example, looks exactly what it sounds like—Carucci took it after a hysterectomy—and Can I Still Hug My Son Naked features the titular embrace. Take a closer look at the series, here.

by Stephanie Eckardt
October 12, 2019 2:40 pm
Three generations 2016.jpg
1 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Three Generations, (2016).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

Eran and I, after 1998 2016.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

2 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Eran and I, after 1998 (2016).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

Curlers 2013.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

3 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Curlers, (2013).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

Lipstick and facial hair 2014.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

4 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Lipstick and Facial Hair, (2014).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

My mother wants me to forgive my daughter 2016.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

5 / 8

Elinor Carucci, My Mother Wants Me To Forgive My Daughter, (2016).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

Mom is being crazy 2017.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

6 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Mom is Being Crazy, (2017).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

Red #1 2014.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

7 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Red #1, (2014).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

Wound 2015.jpg

Published by The Monacelli Press and courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery (2019).

8 / 8

Elinor Carucci, Wound, (2015).

Featured in Midlife by Elinor Carucci, published by the Monacelli Press (2019).

elinor carucci Eye Candy
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