Catherine Opie
THIS WEEK on the GWA Podcast, we interview one of the most renowned photographers working in the world right now, Catherine Opie!\n\nA photographer of portraits of people, landscapes, the urban environment and American society, Opie uses the tool of the camera to explore sexual and cultural identity. First picking up a camera aged nine, it was in the 1990s that she began to gain recognition for her studio portraits of gay and transgender communities who appear painterly and defiant, powerful and regal.\n\nTravelling across the world, and in particular different areas of North America, Opie has documented masculinity through high school footballers; politics and culture through her images of the 2008 presidential election; the landscape through images of sparse urban environments; and memorial through images of house belongings once owned by Elizabeth Taylor. Linked by notions of complexity, community, visibility and empathy, Opie\u2019s photographs tell a story about the society in which we live.\n\nSpeaking about her work she has said, \u201cFrom early on, I wanted to create a language that showed how complex the idea of community really is, how we categorize who we are as human beings in relation to places we live.\u201d\n\nBorn in Ohio, and now based in Los Angeles, where she is a professor of photography and the chair of the UCLA department of art, Opie has exhibited in the world\u2019s most prestigious museums, from MOCA Los Angeles to the Guggenheim in New York, and at the Whitney Biennial and many more.\n\nBut the reason why we are speaking with Opie today is because this summer she opened a solo show at Thomas Dane Gallery in London \u2013 To What We Think We Remember. Taking its title from a Joan Didion quote, this exhibition focuses on community, collective responsibility and how to move forward while faced with the potentially devastating challenges of climate change, and the erasure of personal and political freedoms.\n\n--\n\nLINKS: \n\nThomas Dane show: \nhttps://www.thomasdanegallery.com/exhibitions/268/ \n\nNew Yorker:\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/catherine-opie-all-american-subversive \n\nNew York Times 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/arts/design/catherine-opie-photography-monograph.html \n\nArt review:\n https://artreview.com/catherine-opie/ \n\nOpie essay for CNN:\nhttps://edition.cnn.com/style/article/catherine-opie-beauty/index.html \n\nHilton Als 2021:\nhttps://www.regenprojects.com/attachment/en/54522d19cfaf3430698b4568/Press/610b3b9460b7b53c1b733db9 \n\ni\u2013D: \nhttps://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/g5gvk7/catherine-opie-interview-2021-life-in-photos \n\nNew York Times 2019:\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/t-magazine/catherine-opie.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article \n\n--\n\nFollow us:\nKaty Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel\nResearch assistant: Viva Ruggi\nSound editing by Nada Smiljanic\nArtwork by @thisisaliceskinner\nMusic by Ben Wetherfield\n\nhttps://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/\n\n--\n\nTHIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY CHRISTIES: www.christies.com