Elinor Carucci, “My Mother's Lips”, 1997

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Lips make for a decent photographic subject although one would be hard pressed to name the good ones. The most famous lips in art are Man Ray’s “The Lovers”, 1936 but that’s a painting. Elinor Carucci’s lips — her mother’s that is — are beautiful, a minimal splash or slash of red across a pale pink and blue expanse. They’re not symmetrical at all, and there is the slightest shift from the mask of tragedy to comedy in going from the left of the frame to right.

More than anything, there is a such an enigma to these lips, and they’re lovely.

There is a universality to the image which is true of so much of the artist’s work. In the essay for her first monograph “Closer” (Chronicle Books 2002) she writes “The closer I got to the details, the more I zoomed in, the more universal the themes turned out to be. Moving in turned out to be moving out.” *1 She looks closer and sees further.

It is striking to follow her evolution in her later personal books “Mother” (Prestel 2013) and “Mid-life” (The Monacelli Press; 2019), particularly in the latter which has an unexpected and stunning still life of her uterus, following a hysterectomy. Unflinching.

Red and blue are her true colors.

The Master Irving Penn did many lip studies as fashion, and they are luscious but never as enchanting as these.

But her “Mother’s Lips” are the ultimate ones. The expression — the smile — is unreadable, and they make the Mona Lisa seem effusive by comparison.

The Carucci lips follow you around the room and speak truths.

*1 “Elinor Carucci “Closer” (Chronicle Books 2002)

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