Catherine Opie

Opie was born in Sandusky, Ohio. She spent her early childhood in Ohio,[5] and was influenced heavily by photographer Lewis Hine.[6] At the age of nine she received a Kodak Instamatic camera, and immediately began taking photographs of her family and community.[7] She evolved as an artist at age 14 when she created her own darkroom.[8]

She later received a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1988. Prior to 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. 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.[9] Opie and her partner, painter Julie Burleigh,[10] constructed working studios in the backyard of their home in South Central Los Angeles.[11]

In 2001, Opie gave birth to a boy named Oliver though intrauterine insemination.[12]

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.[13] Along with fellow artists John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha, Opie served as member on 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.[14] Opie returned in support of the museum's new director, Philippe Vergne, in 2014.[15] She was also on the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation.[4]

Along with Richard Hawkins, Opie curated a selection of work by the late artist, Tony Greene, at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, in New York.[16]

Opie's teaching career began in 2001 at University of California, Los Angeles. She currently instructs numerous courses, and serves as a board member for Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as the Andy Warhol Foundation.[8]

Dusty by Opie, 2007

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.[7] For example, she explores abstraction in the landscape vis-a-vis the placement of the horizon line in the Icehouses (2001)[17] and Surfers (2003) series.[18] She has printed photographs using chromochrome, iris prints, Polaroids, and silver photogravure. Examples of art history references include the use of bright color backgrounds in portraits which reference the work of Hans Holbein[11] and the full body frontal portraits that reference August Sander.

Opie's work from the 1990s could be related to the traditions of Renaissance and Baroque art: placing her subjects central to the composition, utilizing stark, dramatic light source, allowing her subjects to fall in front of rich backgrounds; Opie's images relay a more aggressive undertone. Certain art historical attributes throughout her images, themes and/or icons that have been referenced throughout art history.

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 looks at the outward portrayal of masculinity and is a reference to 17th-century Old Master portraiture.[19] It conveyed strong ideals and perceptions based among persons of the LGBT community, referencing gender, age, race and identity; all constructed surrounding identity. This body of work similarly plays with performative aspects and play. These works read as iconography, themselves.

Use of certain symbols in her works have allowed these portraits to sit separately from any of her previous works. The portraits, for instance, from Opie's more recent work in 2012, the image David, uses blood. The symbolism used in this work is recognized as a reoccurring 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). This particular piece is a photograph of an etching carved into her back. The blood etching is an image of two stick figure women holding hands. Behind them is a house, with birds flying through a partially sunny sky. It is very clearly a child's drawing. Opie is positioned in front of a baroque type wallpaper. It is emerald green, and coated in many symbolistic items. The items with the most symbolic value are the fruits. Fruits are known to symbolize fertility and abundance. It is important in this piece to recognize the significance of the fruit. These two women are not biologically able to produce a child, yet they stand in front of a house representing family. The overall placement of this etching suggests that she is proud to be a part of the LGBT community, yet she still feels the need to cover up her identity in certain situations. She may feel as though she always has to look over her shoulder to feel safe.

Unlike other artists, Opie grounds her work in personal relationships, meanings and histories; however, this unfortunately precedent's the ability for one to read these images outside of the intimate content. Most of Opie's work sits in this very personal community, allowing for selective perceptions. Where some viewers may not understand certain allegories and symbols within her work, individuals who know Opie's work well can very identify specific conceptual or metaphorical statements within the images themselves. Where these images demand to be read as allegories, the performative aspect of this work differs from previous work Opie has produced.

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.[20]

A common social/political theme in her work is the concept of community. Opie has investigated aspects of community, making portraits of many groups including LGBT community; surfers; and most recently high school football players. Opie is interested in how identities are shaped by our surrounding architecture. Her work is informed by her identity as an out lesbian.[21] 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 in close friendships and community while straight families focus on their individual family.[22]

Opie has referenced problems of visibility; where the reference to Renaissance paintings in her images declare the individuals as saints or characters. Opie's portraits document, celebrate and protect the community and individuals in which she photographs.[23] In Portraits (1993–1997) she presents a variety of identities among the queer community such as drag kings, cross dressers, and F-to-M transexuals.[24][19] During her time in Los Angeles, Opie focused heavily on her surrounding environment for her works Houses, Freeways, and Mini-malls. Houses (1995–1996) shifted towards domestic architecture through portraits of Beverly Hills and Bel Air mansions. Freeways (1994–1995) depicts the Los Angeles highway system in black and white, which was unique to her usual style. Mini-malls (1997–1998) concluded her works on iconic images of Los Angeles culture by depicting billboards as well as identifying various ethnic groups in shopping centers.

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 house-hold activities across the country.[25]

Drawing inspiration from 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.[26] The resultant images were published as 700 Nimes Road.[27] 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.[28]

Opie's first film The Modernist (2017) is a tribute to French filmmaker Chris Marker's 1962 classic La Jetée.[29] 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.[30] The twenty-two-minute film, in summary, is about an aggravated artist who just wants his own homes 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.[31]

• 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. ISBN 978-0892073757
• "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. ISBN 978-3775730150
• 700 Nimes Road, Catherine Opie, with essays by Hilton Als, Ingrid Sischy, Prestel, Munich, 2015. ISBN 978-3791354255
• Catherine Opie: Keeping an Eye on the World. Buchhandlung Walter König, König, 2017.[32]

• Citibank Private Bank Emerging Artist Award (1997)[40]
• CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts (2003)[41]
• Larry Aldrich Award (2004)[42]
• United States Artists Fellowship (2006)[43]
• Women's Caucus for Art: President's Award for Lifetime Achievement (2009)[44]
• Archives of American Art Medal (2016)[45]
• National Academy member (2016)[45][46]
• Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2019)[47][48]

Her name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic."[49]

• Biography at UCLA
• Artslant review of Opie's high school football
• 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