Catherine Opie: American Photographer

Posted on October 8, 2008
Filed Under Arts/Culture, Gay/Lesbian, New York, Photography, Women | Comments Off on Catherine Opie: American Photographer

“American Photographer,” the subtitle of Catherine Opie’s midcareer survey at the Guggenheim, is both a statement of fact and a critical provocation. From her now-iconic queer portraits like Self-Portrait/Cutting, 1993, to the restrainedly elegant series “Freeway,” 1994–95, the quietly polemic “Domestic,” 1998, and, more recently, her lustrous photographs of surfers, Opie’s work has focused on subjects ranging from the far periphery to the dead center of Americana, often expanding and modifying conventional understandings of both. Presenting more than 180 photographs, this vast exhibition should further complicate our take on these images and the social groups they portray, asking how Opie’s subjectivity—as it is declared or presumed—shapes interpretation, and how meaning is made and remade through consecutive bodies of work. A catalogue, which includes and essay by author and lesbian activist Dorothy Allison, accompanies the show. [Artforum]