Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The pick for our "Photographer of the Week", Catherine Opie!
This week we focus on an outstanding photographer, Catherine Opie, currently exhibited at the Regen Projects Gallery, 6750 Santa monica Blvd., L.A., 90038, February 28th until March 19th 2013. She's a photographer who gives more than one expects and then demands more than just awe and sighs at the range of beauty and confrontation she cr
Brian Forrest: Installation view
Regen Projects, Los Angeles
February 23 - March 29, 2013
Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles © Catherine Opie
Ms. Opie has, for the last several decades has carved a path for herself representing images of friends, family and members of formally marginalized communities. She's informed by classical portraiture where her pictures are very formal and exquisitely lit and defined. Looking closer, the work appears classical, as if by the brush of 17th century portraitists. "No surprises here!", one would say. This initial impression, while mostly true, will be seen to of a high photographic standard: accomplished with impact, imagination, respect, empathy and great photographic workmanship and mastery.
Then there's the newer series of landscapes, from a seemingly different and more ethereal world. One image was so delicate and unformed that one might be forgiven for imagining soft focused bodies! Others were more definite. Here's a scene of an apparent forrest. This appears more straightforward.
As a group, the pictures in this newer landscape series are blurred, out of focus, but still audacious, beggingly ambitious landscapes, inviting us to just imagine! Having experienced the first lushly Rembrandtoid, precise portraits, we give Opie a grand margin of open-mindedness with her landscapes! They merit sustained interest. What's missing in detail is for us to bring to the image. I guess, that she want's us to do some esthetic lifting too! So far, so good: just two entirely different styles and esthetics to challenge the viewer. But wait, there's more!
Much much more!
Catherine Opie's work is far more rich and complex than just two divisions of work. But that as a start, is a fair beginning of an introduction. These works demonstrate he mastery of the medium and empathy for her subjects. but all is not that kind, placid and jovial. Some, one could argue are unlikely to be sources of comfort where pleasant conversation is the norm, not touching boundaries or confronting anything. This is where Catherine departs form the polite social gatherings of the champagne sipping set who support various good charities and causes.
but first let me digress to remind you of Dantés Inferno. There's an archway over the steps leading down the the successively more cruel and punishing layers of Catholic Hell. Just before one descends, the sign reads, Beyond this point, there's no help.
Dante's Inferno Translation:
In her further more acerbic work, she is most well known! It's as if she worked in the most upper floors of Dante's descent to hell. for this is where the Catholic Church of Dantés time and long before and afterwards, would place her subjects if they could. So it's risky but not without complex balance of beauty and social questions.
She's also established herself in impressive and not to be ignored allegorical work where she's no longer reserved and she appears to be speaking on social and political issues close to her heart. It's here that we enter a world of pierced flesh, the blood loss of women and questioning the very fabric of society.
I'll try to introduce all three of these main groupings and give reference to other review of past exhibitions of her work.
This week we focus on an outstanding photographer, Catherine Opie, currently exhibited at the Regen Projects Gallery, 6750 Santa monica Blvd., L.A., 90038, February 28th until March 19th 2013. She's a photographer who gives more than one expects and then demands more than just awe and sighs at the range of beauty and confrontation she cr
eates. She embeds here sets of well-curated images in an aura of better social awareness. Never preachy, she just points her camera to friends and family, as we all do and then to celebrate parts of society she has befriended and understands, that previously have been marginalized. Brian Forrest: Installation view
Regen Projects, Los Angeles
February 23 - March 29, 2013
Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles © Catherine Opie
Ms. Opie has, for the last several decades has carved a path for herself representing images of friends, family and members of formally marginalized communities. She's informed by classical portraiture where her pictures are very formal and exquisitely lit and defined. Looking closer, the work appears classical, as if by the brush of 17th century portraitists. "No surprises here!", one would say. This initial impression, while mostly true, will be seen to of a high photographic standard: accomplished with impact, imagination, respect, empathy and great photographic workmanship and mastery.
Then there's the newer series of landscapes, from a seemingly different and more ethereal world. One image was so delicate and unformed that one might be forgiven for imagining soft focused bodies! Others were more definite. Here's a scene of an apparent forrest. This appears more straightforward.
As a group, the pictures in this newer landscape series are blurred, out of focus, but still audacious, beggingly ambitious landscapes, inviting us to just imagine! Having experienced the first lushly Rembrandtoid, precise portraits, we give Opie a grand margin of open-mindedness with her landscapes! They merit sustained interest. What's missing in detail is for us to bring to the image. I guess, that she want's us to do some esthetic lifting too! So far, so good: just two entirely different styles and esthetics to challenge the viewer. But wait, there's more!
Much much more!
Catherine Opie's work is far more rich and complex than just two divisions of work. But that as a start, is a fair beginning of an introduction. These works demonstrate he mastery of the medium and empathy for her subjects. but all is not that kind, placid and jovial. Some, one could argue are unlikely to be sources of comfort where pleasant conversation is the norm, not touching boundaries or confronting anything. This is where Catherine departs form the polite social gatherings of the champagne sipping set who support various good charities and causes.
but first let me digress to remind you of Dantés Inferno. There's an archway over the steps leading down the the successively more cruel and punishing layers of Catholic Hell. Just before one descends, the sign reads, Beyond this point, there's no help.
Dante's Inferno Translation:
"ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE!"
In middle Italian:
Per me si va nella citta dolente per me si va nell'eterno dolore
per me si va tra la perduta gente
giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore
facemi la divina podestate
la soma sapienza e la primo amore
devante a me, non fuor cosa create
sei non eterno, ed io eterno duro
lasciate ogne speranze voi qu'intrate
Translation:
Through me the way to the suffering city
Through me the way to eternal pain
Through me the way that runs amond the lost
Justice urged on my high artifier
my maker was divine authority
the highest wisdom, and the primal love
Before me, nothing but eternal things were made
and I endure eternally
Abandon all hope, who enter here
Source
In middle Italian:
Per me si va nella citta dolente per me si va nell'eterno dolore
per me si va tra la perduta gente
giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore
facemi la divina podestate
la soma sapienza e la primo amore
devante a me, non fuor cosa create
sei non eterno, ed io eterno duro
lasciate ogne speranze voi qu'intrate
Translation:
Through me the way to the suffering city
Through me the way to eternal pain
Through me the way that runs amond the lost
Justice urged on my high artifier
my maker was divine authority
the highest wisdom, and the primal love
Before me, nothing but eternal things were made
and I endure eternally
Abandon all hope, who enter here
Source
In her further more acerbic work, she is most well known! It's as if she worked in the most upper floors of Dante's descent to hell. for this is where the Catholic Church of Dantés time and long before and afterwards, would place her subjects if they could. So it's risky but not without complex balance of beauty and social questions.
She's also established herself in impressive and not to be ignored allegorical work where she's no longer reserved and she appears to be speaking on social and political issues close to her heart. It's here that we enter a world of pierced flesh, the blood loss of women and questioning the very fabric of society.
I'll try to introduce all three of these main groupings and give reference to other review of past exhibitions of her work.