Catherine Opie

"I was trying to position myself within the complex idea of identity. I think I was using the camera in the street to try and figure out aspects of a community where I could potentially fit in, but I was also acknowledging that it was important to make images that were of our time. Photography always exists for me as a historical document."
Catherine Opie, excerpted from her interview with Helen Molesworth in Empty and Full.

ACTIVE BACKLIST

CATHERINE OPIE: EMPTY AND FULL
Edited by Helen Molesworth. Text by Jill Medvedow, Anna Stothart.
HATJE CANTZ
ISBN: 9783775730150 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 5/31/2011
Active | In stock

CATHERINE OPIE: INAUGURATION
Foreword by Deborah Willis. Text by Eileen Myles.
GREGORY R. MILLER & CO.
ISBN: 9780982681329 | US $50.00
Pub Date: 9/30/2011
Active | In stock

CATHERINE OPIE: AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER
Text by Dorothy Allison, Jennifer Blessing, Russell Ferguson, Nat Trotman.
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
ISBN: 9780892073757 | US $65.00
Pub Date: 10/1/2008
Active | Awaiting stock

CATHERINE OPIE: CHICAGO (AMERICAN CITIES)
Foreword by Robert Fitzpatrick. Text by Elizabeth Smith.
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, CHICAGO
ISBN: 9780933856868 | US $12.00
Pub Date: 9/1/2006
Active | In stock

CATHERINE OPIE: 1999/IN AND AROUND HOME
THE ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM/ORANGE COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART
ISBN: 9781888332285 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 8/15/2006
Active | In stock

CATHERINE OPIE SUNSET ED. OF 50
HATJE CANTZ
ISBN: 9887683964134 | US $1,140.00
Pub Date: --
Active | Limited quantity

CATHERINE OPIE PORTRAIT NR. ED. OF 50
HATJE CANTZ
ISBN: 9887683964133 | US $1,140.00
Pub Date: --
Active | Limited quantity

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

CATHERINE OPIE: SKYWAYS AND ICEHOUSES
Introduction by Douglas Fogle.
WALKER ART CENTER
ISBN: 9780935640724 | US $24.95
Pub Date: 6/2/2002
Out of print | Not available

Catherine Opie

Catherine Opie: Empty and Full

Edited by Helen Molesworth. Text by Jill Medvedow, Anna Stothart.
Published by Hatje Cantz

Catherine Opie (born 1961) has forged new idioms in both portrait and landscape photography, frequently combining the two genres to explore how people occupy different landscapes--from high school football players on the field to ice fishermen on frozen lakes, to surfers waiting for the next wave. In doing so she has come to stand as one of America's foremost documentarians. Recently, Opie has returned to the genre of street photography, elaborating on the relationship between people and place, particularly the energies and desires created when masses of people convene around a shared interest or value. Freedom of assembly is one of the rights Americans take for granted; Opie is interested in the way that sites, such as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., come to be defined by the groups of people who assemble there and how their gathering shapes the identity of the place. This catalogue presents Opie's photographs of recent political demonstrations and gatherings, ranging from the inauguration of President Obama to Tea Party rallies. Drawing on a long and august tradition of American landscape painting and documentary photography, Opie gives us a view of democracy in action. Her photographs offer a dynamic, complicated and loving portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century. This fully illustrated catalogue features a discussion between the artist and ICA Boston Chief Curator Helen Molesworth.

Catherine Opie: Inauguration

Foreword by Deborah Willis. Text by Eileen Myles.
Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.

Celebrated photographer Catherine Opie (born 1961) has long documented the faces and landscapes of American communities, both inside and outside the mainstream. The subjects of her highly regarded portraits have ranged from California surfers, friends and fixtures in LGBT communities, high school football players and the artist herself. In this series of photographs documenting the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Opie broadens her focus to an expanded community of Americans: on January 20, 2009, over one million people gathered on the national mall to see the swearing in of America's first black president, united by their pride at what had been accomplished and a collective hope for the future. In the tradition of Robert Frank's photographs of the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and William Eggleston's 1976 Election Eve series, Opie's Inauguration, a series of 100 photographs, offers an intimate political and personal view of one of the most public days of a nation. Accompanying texts by author, curator and photo-historian Deborah Willis and writer Eileen Myles address the significance of Opie's achievement with this body of work and further explore the wonder, elation and the self-conscious anticipations of this historic moment.

Catherine Opie: American Photographer

Text by Dorothy Allison, Jennifer Blessing, Russell Ferguson, Nat Trotman.
Published by Guggenheim Museum

This comprehensive new exhibition catalogue, published to accompany the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's major mid-career survey of Catherine Opie's work, is the first to gather all of the artist's key projects to date in a single volume. Opie is best known for her subtle but potent portraits of people from the queer communities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. In this definitive volume, each of Opie's series--among them Portraits, Freeways, Domestic, Icehouses and In and Around Home--is reproduced in full color plates alongside works that were not displayed in the exhibition, allowing for the most complete overview of this important Los Angeles artist's work to date. In addition, this volume features a lead essay by exhibition curator Jennifer Blessing, which surveys Opie's artistic career and its historical contexts; a series of interviews with the artist by Russell Ferguson, Chair of the Department of Art at UCLA; and a brief personal reflection by internationally renowned novelist Dorothy Allison, whose work explores many concerns similar to Opie's. It also includes introductory essays on each of the artist's series by Nat Trotman, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim, as well as a newly researched, exhaustive exhibition history and bibliography, making it the primary source for future research on Opie's work.
Catherine Opie was born in Ohio in 1961 and is currently Professor of Photography at UCLA. Opie's work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. She has had solo exhibitions of her work at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; St. Louis Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among many others.

Catherine Opie: Chicago (American Cities)

Foreword by Robert Fitzpatrick. Text by Elizabeth Smith.
Published by Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

This group of 18 darkly radiant images of Chicago is the latest in the Los Angeles-based artist Catherine Opie's photographic series, American Cities, ongoing since 1997. Seeking to uncover aspects of each city's psychic and physical identity and sense of community, Opie's series has taken on Minneapolis, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York and now Chicago--the American "City of Architecture." This newest body of work consists of a group of 14 nocturnal black-and-white photographs of Chicago's architectural landscape alongside a set of four deep, four-color "portrait" views of Lake Michigan at different seasons of the year. At only $12, the book itself is small enough to serve as the perfect sophisticated souvenir, and yet monumental in every way.

Catherine Opie: 1999/In and Around Home

Essays by A.M. Homes and Jessica Hough. Foreword by Harry Philbrick and Dennis Szakacs. Introduction by Elizabeth Armstrong.
Published by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum/Orange County Museum of Art

In this monograph, Catherine Opie juxtaposes a new series of intimate and political photographs, In and Around Home, with images from her pre-millennial road trip, 1999. Both of these contrasting takes on iconic American subjects, through the landscape and snapshot forms, are political in nature, representing as they do the perspective of a gay artist, mother and activist at an important moment in her career. Both are deeply personal, and give the viewer a unique opportunity to see both the private and public worlds of the artist through her own eyes. 1999 / In and Around Home includes reproductions of every photograph in each series, 72 images in all, each on its own page. The idea to pair the two bodies of work is the artist's: It was important to her that they be considered together. She also invited A.M. Homes (Safety of Objects, Music for Torching)--an author she has long admired--to write something in response to the work. Homes's original, previously unpublished short story Let the Dog Drive is included here.

Catherine Opie: Skyways And Icehouses

Introduction by Douglas Fogle.
Published by Walker Art Center

Since the late 1980s, Catherine Opie's interest in the motif of the visual road trip has resulted in photographs that sumultaneously document and question the self-constructed identities of the people and places that characterize America. From the freeways of Los Angeles to the downtown of St. Louis and the Wall Street district of New York, Opie now turns her camera to the skyways and icehouses of the Twin Cities. The culmination of a year-long commission from the Walker Art Center, Skyways and Icehouses provides a meditative portrait of a locale, at once a straight-forward documentation and an inquiring social psycho-geography, an exploration of those symbolic architectures often taken for granted. Personal anecdotes, memories, and stories fron Minnesota residents animate Opie's haunting landscapes.

Catherine Opie Sunset ed. of 50

Published by Hatje Cantz

One of the defining artists of her generation, photographer Catherine Opie (*1961 in Sandusky, Ohio) is known for her portraits and landscapes. She has frequently combined these two elements by training her camera on how people take possession of different landscapes—from high-school football players on the field or ice fishermen on frozen lakes to surfers waiting for the next wave. Opie recently returned to the genre of street photography, elaborating on the relationship between people and places. Her latest photographs present political demonstrations and gatherings—ranging from the inauguration of President Obama to Tea Party rallies. Drawing on the long and illustrious tradition of American landscape painting and documentary photography, like that of Berenice Abbott and Robert Frank, Opie affords us a look at democracy in action.

Our two Collector’s Editions feature two very different motifs: one might also say, though, that they share the same majestic radiance. One is a fantastic portrait of a young black woman among the crowd waiting for the inauguration of Barack Obama. The other is a picture taken during a journey on a gigantic container ship from Korea to Long Beach. The artist won an art prize connected with this journey, and every day, she photographed the sunrise and sunset.

Catherine Opie Portrait Nr. ed. of 50

Published by Hatje Cantz

One of the defining artists of her generation, photographer Catherine Opie (*1961 in Sandusky, Ohio) is known for her portraits and landscapes. She has frequently combined these two elements by training her camera on how people take possession of different landscapes—from high-school football players on the field or ice fishermen on frozen lakes to surfers waiting for the next wave. Opie recently returned to the genre of street photography, elaborating on the relationship between people and places. Her latest photographs present political demonstrations and gatherings—ranging from the inauguration of President Obama to Tea Party rallies. Drawing on the long and illustrious tradition of American landscape painting and documentary photography, like that of Berenice Abbott and Robert Frank, Opie affords us a look at democracy in action.

Our two Collector’s Editions feature two very different motifs: one might also say, though, that they share the same majestic radiance. One is a fantastic portrait of a young black woman among the crowd waiting for the inauguration of Barack Obama. The other is a picture taken during a journey on a gigantic container ship from Korea to Long Beach. The artist won an art prize connected with this journey, and every day, she photographed the sunrise and sunset.