NYC and Catherine Opie

We were in NYC for just an afternoon last week but we managed to squeeze in a visit to the fantastic B&H Photo store (professional photographer's heaven, if you have a little money to spend), a tasty lunch of mezze at a Turkish restaurant called Beyoglu, and a long visit to the Guggenheim to see the Catherine Opie exhibit of photos. Not much time to take photos, but here are two snapshots from the day.

Lunch.

View from inside the Guggenheim.

Here's a Catherine Opie photo from the exhibit:

Untitled #2 (1994), Platinum print, 2 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches

On view at the Guggenheim (this link takes you to the page of her work, including an online exhibition) are a number of her coherent, separate projects - such as Freeways (example above), Being and Having, Portraits, Mini-Malls, Domestic, American Cities, Icehouses, and Surfers. She began in the 1990s by taking formal studio portraits of friends in the queer communities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. They are striking for the way she photographed each uniquely dressed, tattooed and pierced individual against richly colored backdrops and baroque patterns. She refers to being influenced by the 16th century portrait paintings by Hans Holbein. She also photographed domestic scenes of lesbian families around the country, and her own family with her young son. As with most of her work they are done with medium or large format cameras, very deliberately arranged and meticulously lit. Also very tender, expressive and moving.

I particularly enjoyed Freeways, the small panoramic platinum paladium prints of overpasses and roadways in Los Angeles. The forms are sensuous and compelling as abstractions but also visual testimony to the vast - generally unnoticed - infrastructure that connects the LA area (and divides communities, as Opie mentions in the audio tour). By shooting in black and white on Sunday mornings when there are few cars around she heightens the abstract qualities of line, shape and texture, and directs our attention to the forms themselves rather than their usage in a particular era. The platinum process creates an almost antique, historic aura that lacks the contrast (bright whites, dark blacks) usually seen in silver gelatin prints (the most common black and white printing method). By printing them small she pulls us away from feeling their monumental scale as we would if we were standing there in person or if she had made massive prints as is so common these days. Instead of asking us to be awe-struck by the freeways' size in relation to ourselves, she has shrunk them down to a whole new scale. We peer at the prints from up close as if we are getting a glimpse into another world, our world made temporarily unfamiliar.

I also really loved the two series facing each other in one gallery, Icehouses (2001) and Surfers (2003). You can see a video of their installation with Opie's reflections on the images by clicking here. Instead of capturing moments of action among ice fishers in Minnesota and surfers in California she photographs the quiet time of waiting, and from a distance. The horizon lines in these are very important, as they align from photo to photo, but are often almost imperceptible as sky melts into snow or ocean. These photos are huge, 50 x 40 inches and were made with field camera on 8x10 inch film. Both series are about temporary communities, not individuals (no people are even visible in Icehouses, only the little shacks within which people do their fishing). 

 

Untitled #9 (Icehouses) 2001, Chromogenic print, 50 x 40 inches

 

Untitled #9 (Surfers), 2003, Chromogenic print, 50 x 40 inches

It's an excellent show all around. I haven't even mentioned the urban landscape shots of mini-malls in Los Angeles (also without people, which highlights both the signage that points to the presence of multiple cultural communities and the dreary architecture) and similarly large scale, detailed but low-key panoramic shots of Wall Street and Chicago that are also quite compelling.

Her aesthetic of capturing the mundane and the overlooked, and the in-between moments, without drama but with incredible technical finesse and intense detail really appeals to me. So very different from the photojournalism that I normally work with, but more in tune with my own photographic sensibility.

Comments

[adiamondinsunlight]

I went to Beyoglu with friends long ago when it first opened - glad to know that it is still around and just as good.

look forward to seeing you in a few weeks :)

[adiamondinsunlight]

I went to Beyoglu with friends long ago when it first opened - glad to know that it is still around and just as good.

look forward to seeing you in a few weeks :)

[celebrity oops]

I love NY! Best city in world!