Catherine Opie

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox artist Catherine Sue Opie (born 1961)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is an American fine art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles,<ref>Steve Appleford (January 27, 2013), Catherine Opie's documentary photography is on display Los Angeles Times.</ref> as a professor of photography at the University of California, Los Angeles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Secret Selves">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Opie studies the connections between mainstream and infrequent society. By specializing in portraiture, studio, and landscape photography, she is able to create pieces relating to sexual identity. Through photography, Opie documents the relationship between the individual and the space inhabited, offering an exploration of the American identity, particularly probing the tensions between the constructed American dream and the diverse realities of its citizens. Merging conceptual and documentary styles, Opie's oeuvre gravitates towards portraiture and landscapes, utilizing serial images and unexpected compositions to both spotlight and blur the lines of gender, community, and place while invoking the formal gravitas reminiscent of Renaissance portraiture and hinting at her deep engagement with the history of art and painting. <ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She is known for her portraits exploring the Los Angeles leather-dyke community. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art<ref name="moma">Template:Cite web</ref> and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,<ref name="guggenheim">Template:Cite web</ref> and she has won awards including the United States Artists Fellowship (2006) and the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Women’s Caucus for Art (2009).<ref name=":4" />

Life

Opie was born in Sandusky, Ohio. She spent her early childhood in Ohio<ref>Liesl Bradner (August 21, 2010), Football and art collide at LACMA Los Angeles Times.</ref> and was influenced heavily by photographer Lewis Hine.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":5">Template:Cite web</ref> On her 9th birthday, she received a Kodak Instamatic camera and immediately began taking photographs of her family and community.<ref name=":5" /> One of her first photographs was a self-portrait of her making muscles.<ref name=":2" /> She evolved as an artist at age 14 when she created her own darkroom.<ref name="theartstory.org">Template:Cite web</ref> Her family moved from Ohio to California in 1975.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref> She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1985.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

She later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1988. Before arriving at CalArts, she was a strictly black-and-white photographer. Opie's thesis project entitled Master Plan (1988) examined a wide variety of topics. Her early work was said to focus on the raping of landscapes.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The project looked deeper into construction sites, advertisement schemes, homeowner regulations, and the interior layout of their homes within the community of Valencia, California.

In 1988, Opie moved to Los Angeles, California, and began working as an artist. She supported herself by accepting a job as a lab technician at the University of California, Irvine.<ref>Catherine Opie: American Photographer, September 26, 2008 – January 7, 2009 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.</ref> Opie and her former partner, painter Julie Burleigh,<ref>Lisa Boone (April 12, 2013), Garden is her canvas, flowers, and edibles (and chickens) her paint Los Angeles Times.</ref> constructed working studios in the backyard of their home in South Central Los Angeles.<ref name="Home Views, Bound by Ice or Leather">Hilarie M. Sheets (January 27, 2013), Home Views, Bound by Ice or Leather The New York Times.</ref>

In 2001, Opie gave birth to a boy named Oliver through intrauterine insemination.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

At the Hammer Museum, Opie was on the first Artist Council (a series of sessions with curators and museum administrators) and served on the board of overseers.<ref>Susan Emerling (April 19, 2009), The Hammer Museum gets together with artists, outside the box Los Angeles Times.</ref> Along with fellow artists John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, and Ed Ruscha, Opie served as a member of the board for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2012, she and the others resigned; however, they joined the museum's 14-member search committee for a new director after Jeffrey Deitch's resignation in 2013.<ref>Mike Boehm (September 24, 2013), MOCA adds artists who resigned from board to its director search team Los Angeles Times.</ref> Opie returned in support of the museum's new director, Philippe Vergne, in 2014.<ref>Mike Boehm and Deborah Vankin (March 19, 2014), Artists return to MOCA board Los Angeles Times.</ref> She was also on the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation.<ref name="Secret Selves" />

Along with Richard Hawkins, Opie curated a selection of work by the late artist Tony Greene at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, in New York.<ref>David Ng (November 15, 2013), "Whitney Biennial 2014 to include L.A. artists, David Foster Wallace". Los Angeles Times.</ref> As of 2017, Opie has her studio at The Brewery Art Colony. <ref>Ariel Levy (March 5, 2017), "Catherine Opie: All-American Subversive". The New Yorker.</ref>

Work

Art

File:John and Scott, 1993, Catherine Opie at Rubell DC 2022.jpg

John and Scott (1993), from the Portraits series (1993-1997), at the Rubell Museum DC in 2022

Opie's work is characterized by a combination of formal concerns, a variety of printing technologies, references to art history, and social/political commentary. It demonstrates a mix between traditional photography and unconventional subjects.<ref name=":0" /> For example, she explores abstraction in the landscape vis-a-vis the placement of the horizon line in the Icehouses (2001)<ref name=Mia>Template:Cite web</ref> and Surfers (2003) series.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She has printed photographs using Chronochrome, Iris prints, Polaroids, and silver photogravure. Examples of art history references include the use of bright colour backgrounds in portraits that reference the work of Hans Holbein<ref name="Home Views, Bound by Ice or Leather"/> and the full-body frontal portraits that reference August Sander. Opie also depicts herself with her son in the traditional pose of Madonna and Child in Self Portrait/Nursing (2004).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Opie's earlier work relies more heavily on documentary photography as opposed to allegorical, yet still provides a stark relationship to her investigation and use of powerful iconography throughout the years.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The use of symbolic elements in Opie's works has allowed these portraits to sit separately from any of her previous works. For instance, the portrait Self Portrait/Pervert (1994) uses blood.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The symbolism used in this work is recognised as a recurring statement for Opie, personally and allegorically. These images convey symbolic references to the celebration, embracing, and remembrance of the shift and personal relationship with one's body. Opie's use of blood is also seen in another work entitled Self-portrait/Cutting (1993).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Opie first came to be known with Being and Having (1991) and Portraits (1993–1997), which portray queer communities in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Being and Having includes 13 colour photographs of Opie's lesbian friends and looks at the performance of gender identity and masculinity with visual reference to 17th-century Old Master portraiture.<ref name="orma">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":5" />

Also exploring ideas of the outward portrayal of identity, in Dyke (1993), Opie portrayed her friend Steakhouse (now a queer filmaker, still friends with Opie) who had the word 'dyke' tattooed on her neck, seen as an act of bravery at the time.<ref name=":5" /> This photograph was also the first time Opie used a fabric background for her portraits, again alluding to Old Master paintings. As such, she saw this photograph as existing within the history of painting, rather than photography.<ref name=":5" />

In Portraits (1993–1997), Opie presents a variety of identities among the queer community, such as drag kings, cross-dressers, and F-to-M transexuals.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="orma" />Opie has referenced problems of visibility in the LGBT community, but in her images the reference to Renaissance paintings declares the individuals as saints or characters. Opie's portraits document, celebrate, and protect the community and individuals in which she photographs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

A common social/political theme in her work is the concept of community. Opie stated that "portraiture literally creates a history of one’s community".<ref name=":5" /> She has investigated aspects of community, making portraits of many groups including the LGBT community, surfers, and high school football players. Her work is informed by her identity as an out lesbian<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and "out of incredible love and dialogue with people who share my queer identity with me and what it meant at that time in our lives".<ref name=":5" /> Her works balance personal and political. Her assertive portraits bring queers to a forefront that is normally silenced by societal norms. Her work also explores how the idea of family varies between straight and LGBTQ communities. Opie highlights that LGBTQ households often base their families on close friendships and community, while straight families focus on their individual families.<ref>Heartney, Eleanor, Helaine Posner, Nancy Princenthal, and Sue Scott. The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium. Munich: Prestel, 2013.</ref> She is also interested in how identities are shaped by our surrounding architecture.

This Los Angeles-focused series sparked her ongoing project American Cities (1997–present), which is a collection of panoramic black-and-white photographs of quintessential American cities. This series is similar to an earlier work of hers, Domestic (1995–1998), which documented her 2-month RV road trip, portraying lesbian families engaging in everyday household activities across the country.<ref>Template:Cite journalTemplate:Dead link</ref>

Drawing inspiration from the transgressive photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and sex radicals, who provided a space for liberals and feminists, Opie has also explored controversial topics and imagery in her work. In her O folio—6 photogravures from 1999—Opie photographed S-M porn images she took earlier for On Our Backs, but as extreme close-ups.

In 2011, Opie photographed the home of the actress Elizabeth Taylor in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Taylor died during the project and never met Opie. Opie took 3,000 images for the project; 129 comprised the completed study.<ref name=Slate16>Template:Cite news</ref> The resultant images were published as 700 Nimes Road.<ref name=AD15>Template:Cite news</ref> Collector Daily noted the "relentless femininity of Taylor's taste" in the images contrasted with Opie's self-declared "identity as a butch woman" in Opie's forward to 700 Nimes Road and Opie's "status as an ordinary mortal" in comparison to Taylor's stardom.<ref name='Collector'>Template:Cite web</ref>

Opie's first film, The Modernist (2017), is a tribute to French filmmaker Chris Marker's 1962 classic La Jetée.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Composed of 800 still images, the film features Pig Pen (aka Stosh Fila)—a genderqueer performance artist—as the protagonist. The Modernist has been described as an ode to the city in which it takes place, Los Angeles, but it is also seen as questioning the legacy of modernism in America.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In summary, the twenty-two-minute film is about an aggravated artist who just wants his own home as he has fallen in love with the architecture of Los Angeles. Being unable to purchase a place to live, the performance artist goes around burning down lovely architecture of LA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Teaching

Opie's teaching career began in 2001 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2019, UCLA announced Opie as the university’s inaugural endowed chair in the art department, a position underwritten by a $2-million gift from philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick.<ref>Deborah Vankin (June 29, 2021), Catherine Opie’s plan to help UCLA art students graduate with way less debt Los Angeles Times.</ref> She has also taught photography workshops at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO and Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Publications

• Freeways. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
• Catherine Opie, essays by Kate Bush, Joshua Decter & Russell Ferguson. The Photographers' Gallery, London.
• Catherine Opie: In Between Here and There. Saint Louis, MO: Saint Louis Art Museum, 2000. With an essay by Rochelle Steiner. Exhibition catalogue.
• Catherine Opie. The Photographers' Gallery, London, 2000.
• Catherine Opie: Skyways and Ice Houses. Walker Art Center 2002.
• 1999 / In and Around Home. The Aldrich Contemporary Museum of Art, Ridgefield, CT, and the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, 2006.
• Chicago (American Cities), curated by Elizabeth T.A. Smith, published by Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2006.
• Catherine Opie: An American Photographer. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2008. Template:ISBN
• "Catherine Opie" This is Not to be Looked At. Morse, Rebecca. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2008.
• Catherine Opie: Empty and Full, Molesworth, Helen, ed. Hatje Cantz, Stuttgart, 2011. Template:ISBN
• 700 Nimes Road, Catherine Opie, with essays by Hilton Als, Ingrid Sischy, Prestel, Munich, 2015. Template:ISBN
• Catherine Opie: Keeping an Eye on the World. Buchhandlung Walter König, König, 2017.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Catherine Opie, with essays by Hilton Als, Douglas Fogle, Helen Molesworth, Elizabeth A.T. Smith, interview by Charlotte Cotton, Phaidon Press, New York, 2021. Template:ISBN

Notable works in public collections

• Master Plan (Floor Series) (1986-1988), Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Burnt House from Burlington and Ninth Street (1990), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Being and Having (1991), Museum of Modern Art, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Angela Scheirl (1993), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Museum of Modern Art, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Dyke (1993), Museum of Modern Art, New York;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Whitney Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Jo (1993), Rubell Museum, Miami and Washington, D.C.;<ref name="Rubell listing" /> and Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Mike and Sky (1993), Museum of Modern Art, New York;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Rubell Museum, Miami and Washington, D.C.;<ref name="Rubell listing">Template:Cite web</ref> and Whitney Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Pig Pen (1993), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Self Portrait/Cutting (1993), Los Angeles County Museum of Art;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Whitney Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #1, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #5, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #16, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #20, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Whitney Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #27, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Crystal Mason (1994), Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Rubell Museum, Miami and Washington, D.C.<ref name="Rubell listing" />
• Richard (1994), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Ron Athey (1994), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Whitney Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Self Portrait/Pervert (1994), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Trash (1994), Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Vaginal Davis (1994), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Flipper, Tanya, Chloe, & Harriet, San Francisco, California (1995), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Tate, London;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Whitney Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Dyke Deck (1996), Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Divinity Fudge (1997), Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #1, from the series Mini-malls (1997-1998), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Melissa & Lake, Durham, North Carolina (1998), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Tate, London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Tammy Rae & Kaia, Durham, North Carolina (1998), Saint Louis Art Museum;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Freedom, Oklahoma (1999), Victoria and Albert Museum, London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled, Divinity (2000), Seattle Art Museum<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #1, from the series Wall Street (2000-2001), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #11, from the series Wall Street (2000-2001), Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Tate, London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #9, from the series Icehouses (2001), Los Angeles County Museum of Art;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis<ref name="Walker Icehouses">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Untitled #10, from the series Icehouses (2001), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis<ref name="Walker Icehouses" />
• Self Portrait/Nursing (2004), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer (Lake Michigan) (2004-2005), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Football Landscape #3 (Notre Dame vs. St. Thomas More, Lafayette, LA) (2007), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Kate (Bike) (2007), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Saint-Gilles-du-Gard (2007), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Football Landscape #13 (Twentynine Palms vs. Big Bear, Twentynine Palms, CA) (2008), Los Angeles County Museum of Art<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Inauguration portfolio (2009), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Los Angeles County Museum of Art;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Jewelry Boxes #6, from the portfolio 700 Nimes Road (2010-2011), Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Elizabeth (2013), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Thelma and Duro (2017), National Portrait Gallery, London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• monument/monumental (2020), The Broad, Los Angeles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

• Citibank Private Bank Emerging Artist Award (1997)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts (2003)<ref>Mike Boehm (October 26, 2010), Herb Alpert-funded awards will pay five artists $75,000 each Los Angeles Times.</ref>
• Larry Aldrich Award (2004)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• United States Artists Fellowship (2006)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Women's Caucus for Art: President's Award for Lifetime Achievement (2009)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Archives of American Art Medal (2016)<ref name="newsroom.ucla.edu">Template:Cite web</ref>
• National Academy member (2016)<ref name="newsroom.ucla.edu"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2019)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In popular culture

Her name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

External links

• Biography at UCLA Template:Webarchive
• Artslant review of Opie's high school football Template:Webarchive
• Opie in Lacanian Ink 27
• Opie interview with Megan Driscoll in Port, 2011
• Opie interview with Kyle Fitzpatrick, in Los Angeles I'm Yours, 2012
• Opie interview with Russell Ferguson, Index Magazine, 1996
• Opie and the Guggenheim

Links to Works

• Self-Portrait/Pervert by Catherine Opie
• Dyke by Catherine Opie
• Self Portrait/Nursing by Catherine Opie
• Lawrence by Catherine Opie
• Being and Having by Catherine Opie
• Joanne, Betsy, & Olivia, Bayside, New York by Catherine Opie
• Melissa & Lake, Durham, North Carolina by Catherine Opie
• Pig Pen (tattoos) by Catherine Opie