LISETTA CARMI

The photographer's 1965 series 'I travestiti' has been equated with the work of Nan Goldin.

Lisetta Carmi worked as a photographer for eighteen years, from 1960 to 1978. She chronicled and humanized marginalized communities amid the late mid-20th century in her native Italy and beyond, willfully ignoring sociopolitical taboos. Her photos were incredibly prescient: today, as the cultural contemporary conversation around gender identity grows more complex, her singular series I travestiti packs an even more remarkable punch. The raw honesty of her gaze has been equated with the spirit of photographers like Christer Strömholm and Nan Goldin.

Carmi chronicled these women with a tender gaze, exempt from judgement and never veering into invasive voyeurism. Gender identity was entirely outside the vocabulary of the time: it was addressed solely in scientific studies, but Carmi was never clinical either. She lent dignity and beauty to the masked realities of sex work. She normalized the gestures of the women dressing up, applying make-up before mirrors, doting on each other in moments of lounge-y camaraderie—instinctively revealing, in these innocuous moments, the sensuality of their silhouettes.