CATHERINE OPIE

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.