Thirty-plus years of Opie's stylized investigations of identity and social belonging through portraiture
This publication accompanies a major survey at the National Portrait Gallery, spanning the entirety of American photographer Catherine Opie's career. At the core of Opie's work is a persistent exploration of society's evolving ideas regarding community, identity and belonging, especially within the LGBTQ+ community. Opie's wide-ranging portraits include intimate studio shots of friends and figures, capturing moments of vulnerability, pride and resilience. Alongside these, she creates socially engaged documentary narratives, such as her images from the inauguration of Barack Obama. These photographs work in dialogue with one another to create new narratives, challenging viewers to reflect on the figures most commonly portrayed in art and those who go unseen.
Featuring a tactile quarter-bound cover, To Be Seen was created in close collaboration with the artist and offers an illuminating overview of the artist's lifelong interrogation of social and artistic representation. The volume includes high-quality reproductions of photographs produced throughout her career, encompassing her meticulously crafted studio portraits as well as her context-specific shots captured across America. Supplementing these images is a suite of texts, featuring scholarly essays, an excerpt from Joan Didion's "On the Road" and a dialogue between Opie and exhibition designer Katy Barkan.
Living and working in Los Angeles, Catherine Opie (born 1961) relays between conceptual and documentary approaches to image-making. Best known for her highly stylized color portraits, Opie's work explores social strata throughout America, from Black football players in the Midwest to leather-clad S&M practitioners. Her work has enjoyed immense critical acclaim, including retrospectives at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2008 and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in 2011.
Muu info
Contemporary artist Catherine Opie documents the ebb and flow of human culture. Opie's photography redefines portraiture, probing the complex questions of who we are, how we present ourselves, and why representation matters.
Introduction by Clare Freestone
QUEER PERSPECTIVES : Being and Having by Alistair O'Neill
MAPPING A COMMUNITY: Catherine Opies Photographic Cartography by Magda
Keaney
NATIONAL IDENTITY, NATIONAL PORTRAITS: An excerpt from Joan Didions On The
Road
VISIBILITY: Intense / Opaque by Mark Godfrey
WITHIN: OPIE IN THE GALLERY: Catherine Opie in dialogue with Katy Barkan
Catherine Opie is a renowned photographer whose work explores identity, community, and the American landscape. Known for series such as Being and Having (1991), Domestic (199598), and In and Around Home (200405), her photographs range from intimate portraits of the LGBTQ+ community to stark urban and suburban environments. Opie has exhibited widely, with solo shows at the Guggenheim Museum, LACMA, MOCA LA, and the Hammer Museum, and her work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Clare Freestone is Curator, Photography, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Recent publications include Yevonde: Life and Colour (2023) Photographs in Dialogue UAE 1971 UK (2020) and Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer (2011), with contributions made to Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy (2020).
Magdalene Keaney is Curator at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. She was Senior Curator, Photography, at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 20182022. Recent publications include Francessca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In (2024), with contributions made to Women at Work: 1900 to Now (2023), Yevonde: Life and Colour (2023) and 100 Fashion Icons (2019).
Alistair ONeill is a writer, curator and professor of fashion at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London). He is the author of Faye Toogood: Drawing, Material, Sculpture, Landscape (2022), Exploding Fashion: From 2D to 3D to 3D Animation (2021), and London: after a fashion (2007). O'Neill recently curated, A Hard Man is Good to Find! (The Photographers Gallery, London), he sits on the editorial board of Fashion Theory, and writes regularly for Aperture magazine.
Mark Godfrey is co-director of New Curators, a one-year curatorial training programme for international curators from lower socio-economic backgrounds. He was Senior Curator, International Art, at Tate Modern from 20072021. Since leaving Tate, he has curated exhibitions of Laura Owens and Vincent van Gogh (Foundation Vincent van Gogh, Arles), Nicole Eisenman (Whitechapel Gallery, London), Pino Pascali (Fondazione Prada, Milan), and Jacqueline Humphries (Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio).
