Catherine Opie - American Photographer December 20, 2008

Since the early 1990s, Catherine Opie has produced a complex body of photographic work, adopting such diverse genres as studio portraiture, landscape photography, and urban street photography to explore notions of communal, sexual, and cultural identity. From her early portraits of transgender people and performance artists to her expansive urban landscapes of cities like Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and New York, Opie has offered profound insights into the conditions in which communities form and the terms in which they are defined. All the while she has maintained a strict formal rigor, working in stark and provocative color as well as richly toned black and white. Influenced by social documentary photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and August Sander, Opie underscores and elevates the poignant yet unsettling veracity of her subjects. Though Opie’s photographs have been shown extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, no single exhibition has yet offered an overview of her diverse artistic project. Catherine Opie: American Photographer serves to fill this void. It features important examples from Opie’s major series, including Portraits (1993—97); Self-Portraits (1993—2004); Freeways (1994); Houses (1995—96); Domestic (1995—99); American Cities (1997—present); Icehouses (2001); and Surfers (2003). As such, this exhibition provides audiences with a valuable opportunity to examine firsthand the interconnections between Opie’s various styles and subjects.