Doubt and uncertainty mark her account of family inheritance, photographic portraiture, and eldercare.
family
Posted inArt
Nona Faustine’s Family Album
Faustine’s depiction of household shared by three generations of Black women presents matriarchy as a source of power.
Posted inBooks
Photographs from a Decade of Motherhood
In photographer Elinor Carucci’s new monograph Mother, she chronicles nine years of motherhood, from the tentative expectancy of pregnancy to the whir of raising children in the bustle of New York City.
Posted inBooks
The Sore Subject of Family Dynamics
The family unit, siblings, extended family, and the individuals who make up these large trees, is the subject of photographer Lydia Panas’ hardback book of glossy, meticulous portraits, aptly titled The Mark of Abel. Thinking back on the biblical story of Cain and Abel, Panas’ clever reverse of the “mark” seems to imply that her subjects and viewers alike suffer Abel’s curse of brotherhood, fraternity, and family. It’s a rich theme for rich photographs, set in an Eden-like location of lush and overgrown greenery. Ninety-five pages long, containing fifty perfectly paced photographs, The Mark of Abel presents us with hundreds of strangers, all of whom feel bizarrely familiar. Panas’ family portraits are tender rather than sentimental, serious though not cynical, and dysfunctional without being cliché.