CATHERINE OPIE: Born in Sandusky, Ohio, USA; 1961 Lives and works in Los Angeles & New York Present: Assistant Professor of Photography, Yale University, New Haven, CT San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; B.F.A, 1985 CalArts, Valencia, CA; M.F.A., 1988
Selected Solo Exhibitions
: 2002 Walker Art Center, MN, 'Catherine Opie: Skyways & Icehouses' 2000 Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL, 'Catherine Opie' Thread Waxing Space, NY, 'New Polaroids' Partobject Gallery, Carrboro, NC, 'Works 1991-97' Gorney Bravin & Lee, New York, NY, 'Domestic'
Public Collections: Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico Groninger Museum, Groninger, The Netherlands Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
The driving force behind all of Opie's work is herself. She has many opinions, many causes, and many ideas to communicate, but above all she seeks to reinvent herself through art and photography. She seeks new ways to see life and new ways to portray it; she hates being pigeonholed, and does not want to do it to herself. However, one comment that she often repeats is that all of her work, no matter the subject matter, is "queer work" because she herself is queer. It is a part of her own identity that she cannot erase, nor negate the influence of. This is not as categorical as it seems, however. Queer work is neither better nor worse than any other kind of work. It is merely work seen from a slightly different perspective.
