Edited by Helen Molesworth. Text by Jill Medvedow, Anna Stothart.
Catherine Opie (born 1961) has forged new idioms in both portrait and landscape photography, frequently combining the two genres to explore how people occupy different landscapes--from high school football players on the field to ice fishermen on frozen lakes, to surfers waiting for the next wave. In doing so she has come to stand as one of America's foremost documentarians. Recently, Opie has returned to the genre of street photography, elaborating on the relationship between people and place, particularly the energies and desires created when masses of people convene around a shared interest or value. Freedom of assembly is one of the rights Americans take for granted; Opie is interested in the way that sites, such as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., come to be defined by the groups of people who assemble there and how their gathering shapes the identity of the place. This catalogue presents Opie's photographs of recent political demonstrations and gatherings, ranging from the inauguration of President Obama to Tea Party rallies. Drawing on a long and august tradition of American landscape painting and documentary photography, Opie gives us a view of democracy in action. Her photographs offer a dynamic, complicated and loving portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century. This fully illustrated catalogue features a discussion between the artist and ICA Boston Chief Curator Helen Molesworth.
Featured image, Catherine Opie's Untitled #2 (Immigration March, Los Angeles, CA), 2006, is reproduced from Empty and Full, in which Anna Stothart writes, "In Los Angeles, over 60,000 immigrants and their supporters could be seen marching through downtown to City Hall, waving American flags, blowing horns, and carrying signs protesting the new law. Some of the strongest opposition to the bill originated in Los Angeles, which has since become a center for opposition to the law, with city officials calling for a boycott of the state of Arizona."
"Empty and Full combines two new major bodies of work by artist Catherine Opie. The first is photographs of sunrises and sunsets taken aboard a Korean container ship on its transpacific journey from Korea to California--evocative, meditative images that capture the sense of time and space in the sky and sea. The second is a series of photographs of public gatherings and demonstrations of diverse communities, including an antiwar rally, a Boy Scout Jamboree, a Womyn's Music Festival, a Tea Party demonstration. Empty and Full suggests a range of meanings, from the presence and absence of people in the photographs to the questions about what and who is visible or unseen in out relationships and our society. From the tightly controlled horizon line in the seascapes to the more chaotic public scenes that balance individuals and crowds, in Empty and Full Catherine Opie grapples with relationships defined by commerce, camping, culture, politics, and gender--showing us American communities and democracy with all their fault lines and possibilities."
Jill Medvedow, excerpted from the foreword to Empty and Full.
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 10.75 in. / 96 pgs / 53 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $50 ISBN: 9783775730150 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 5/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Helen Molesworth. Text by Jill Medvedow, Anna Stothart.
Catherine Opie (born 1961) has forged new idioms in both portrait and landscape photography, frequently combining the two genres to explore how people occupy different landscapes--from high school football players on the field to ice fishermen on frozen lakes, to surfers waiting for the next wave. In doing so she has come to stand as one of America's foremost documentarians. Recently, Opie has returned to the genre of street photography, elaborating on the relationship between people and place, particularly the energies and desires created when masses of people convene around a shared interest or value. Freedom of assembly is one of the rights Americans take for granted; Opie is interested in the way that sites, such as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., come to be defined by the groups of people who assemble there and how their gathering shapes the identity of the place. This catalogue presents Opie's photographs of recent political demonstrations and gatherings, ranging from the inauguration of President Obama to Tea Party rallies. Drawing on a long and august tradition of American landscape painting and documentary photography, Opie gives us a view of democracy in action. Her photographs offer a dynamic, complicated and loving portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century. This fully illustrated catalogue features a discussion between the artist and ICA Boston Chief Curator Helen Molesworth.
