Jessica Craig-Martin

JESSICA CRAIG-MARTIN (Hanover, 1963).
"Golden showers, New York City," 2000.
Color photography.

Photographer Jessica Craig-Martin is known for her incisive, satirical and technical look at the world of luxury, high society and charity galas. Daughter of conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin, Jessica has established herself as the visual chronicler of the excesses of the elite, using an unmistakable photographic style characterized by the use of aggressive flash and fragmented framing that omits the faces of her subjects to focus on revealing details: excessive jewelry, taut seams, half-finished martini glasses or artificially tanned skin. His work does not seek flattering portraiture, but acts as a sort of anthropology of privilege, capturing the vulnerability and decadence that lurk behind the mask of perfection at events like the Cannes Film Festival or the Met Gala. By stripping her protagonists of their facial identity and focusing on external status symbols, Craig-Martin achieves a biting social critique that transforms glamour into something grotesque and fascinating at the same time, which has led her to exhibit in institutions such as the P.S.1 MoMA and to collaborate with prestigious publications such as Vogue and The New Yorker.