{"id":2432522,"date":"2026-05-26T10:37:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2432522"},"modified":"2026-05-26T10:37:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:37:52","slug":"photographer-catherine-opie-is-everywhere-all-at-once-this-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/photographer-catherine-opie-is-everywhere-all-at-once-this-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographer Catherine Opie is everywhere all at once this spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It is, by any measure, the year of Catherine Opie.<\/p>\n

In her downtown Los Angeles studio, Opie is preparing for one of the most visible stretches of her career, with work appearing simultaneously across Europe and Los Angeles. This includes a career-spanning survey at London\u2019s National Portrait Gallery that will travel to Edinburgh\u2019s Royal Scottish Academy, as well as exhibitions in Kassel, Germany, and Trondheim, Norway. Closer to home, a new exhibit, \u201cHolding Blue,\u201d opens May 28 at Regen Projects.<\/p>\n

Opie\u2019s photos will also appear this summer in group shows at several other L.A. art venues, including the Autry Museum of the American West, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner, in exhibits featuring photographs that trace a practice moving fluidly between intimate portraiture, civic history and the natural world. Her work is also in the permanent collection of the Marciano Art Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that many artists have five really large shows in one year,\u201d Opie, 65, said during a recent interview. <\/p>\n

Sitting next to miniature mock-ups of the exhibitions, Opie noted that her longtime gallerist, Shaun Caley Regen, has christened this the \u201cCatherine Opie World Tour 2026,\u201d complete with T-shirts.<\/p>\n

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Opie\u2019s exhibition, \u201cHolding Blue,\u201d at Regen Projects centers on a series of Norwegian mountain landscapes shot over 20 days in early 2024. <\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Opie initially came to the attention of the art world in the 1990s for documenting her queer community and was declared the \u201cAmerican Photographer\u201d at her Guggenheim retrospective in 2008. At Regen Projects, however, her work takes a quiet, introspective form.<\/p>\n

\u201cHolding Blue\u201d centers on a series of Norwegian mountain landscapes shot over 20 days in early 2024. Opie became captivated by the Arctic light during her first trip to the region more than a decade ago, and she long hoped to photograph Norway\u2019s famous \u201cBlue Mountains.\u201d The opportunity arose after she retired from UCLA, where she had served as chair of the art department and also taught photography for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be really great to bring the blue mountains [to Los Angeles], not only to remind us of what we mourn for our water loss in the Sierras, but also as a meditation for us as a city in \u2026 mourning,\u201d she said, referencing both California\u2019s prolonged drought and the 2025 wildfires.<\/p>\n

The 44 images at Regen, accompanied by nine ceramic sculptures, reflect on the mountain\u2019s changing light and environmental vulnerability, continuing Opie\u2019s longstanding interest in how photographs bear witness.<\/p>\n

In Norway, Opie hoped to explore \u2014 and contribute to \u2014 the long history of blue in art, from Pablo Picasso\u2019s Blue Period to Yves Klein\u2019s monochromes and Derek Jarman\u2019s elegiac film \u201cBlue.\u201d The resulting images capture mountains and fjords dissolving into sky, rendered in the deep azure light of the Arctic Circle. The mountain photos will also be on display at the PoMo museum in Trondheim.<\/p>\n

When the Eaton fire exploded early last year, the images hung in Opie\u2019s studio awaiting final edits. They took on added resonance when Opie ceded the space to five friends displaced by the flames, offering food, shelter and a place to regroup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave [the photos] first to my friends of Altadena,\u201d she said, adding that she was now sharing them with the larger community. Opie noted that the title \u201cHolding Blue\u201d refers to both the physical presence of the mountains and the emotional responses they evoke.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the busy year, Opie said she feels \u201cincredibly moved and honored that I am actually an artist [who] can make a difference in the world for young people who are scared.\u201d The environmental vulnerability embedded in the landscapes echoes fears that Opie sees spreading as political hostility intensifies nationally.<\/p>\n

This cyclic trend is not new to Opie, whose best-known works, particularly from the 1990s, brought unprecedented visibility to communities that contemporary photography at the time rarely focused on.<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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Photographer Catherine Opie at her studio at the Brewery Artist Lofts. She is preparing for one of the most visible stretches of her career, with work appearing simultaneously across Europe and Los Angeles, including a new exhibit, \u201cHolding Blue,\u201d which opens May 28 at Regen Projects.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cThe LGBTQ community is very much still being harassed \u2026 homophobia and transphobia are at the highest that it has been since the \u201980s, [during the] AIDS crisis,\u201d she said, at one point tearing up as she spoke about the recent suicides of two friends.<\/p>\n

For Regen, founder of Regen Projects, Opie\u2019s ability to move across subjects has long defined her practice. She recalled first meeting the artist in her Koreatown apartment in the early 1990s when she saw portraits that were featured in Opie\u2019s seminal series \u201cBeing and Having.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way, when I first sat there [that I could imagine] what a range she had as an artist,\u201d Regen said. \u201cHow she could go between the most \u2026 formal, exquisitely beautiful work to almost street photography.\u201d<\/p>\n

That range is evident in Opie\u2019s contributions to \u201cCalifornia Light and Space (The 21st Century Version)\u201d opening at David Zwirner on June 4, and organized by former Museum of Contemporary Art chief curator Helen Molesworth.<\/p>\n

Opie photographed images in that show from the balcony of her Hollywood high-rise. The photos transform the city\u2019s atmosphere into fields of luminous color \u2014 the Hollywood Roosevelt\u2019s sign silhouetted against saturated red and yellow skies, or the moon suspended in darkness. Molesworth said Opie\u2019s work helps articulate the show\u2019s thesis of framing today\u2019s artists\u2019 exploration of their environment \u2014 utilizing light and space to dismantle linear perspective \u2014 similar to what artists such as James Turrell and Robert Irwin did 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cCathy knows that water and air meet and form a horizon line, but she\u2019s taking a picture in which [the line] is gone,\u201d Molesworth said, describing Opie\u2019s technique as \u201cmagic.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Molesworth, a longtime friend of Opie\u2019s, the artist\u2019s work occupies a space between photography and painting \u2014 images whose scale and atmosphere reshape how viewers experience light, landscape, and the built environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cCathy never gave up on beauty, even though beauty is a very difficult and problematic concept,\u201d Molesworth said.<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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\u201cCathy never gave up on beauty, even though beauty is a very difficult and problematic concept,\u201d said curator Helen Molesworth of photographer Catherine Opie.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Opie plans to return to her long-running \u201cAmerican Cities\u201d series, photographing Washington, D.C., this summer. Since 1997, she\u2019s periodically turned her camera on urban landscapes, including Los Angeles and Chicago, using architecture and public space to reflect on broader social and political issues. This time, she wants to capture the capital before President Trump\u2019s proposals to reshape its monumental core begin to transform the district\u2019s visual and symbolic landscape.<\/p>\n

Opie\u2019s interest in photography as a vehicle for healing extends beyond gallery exhibitions. She is collaborating with architect Katy Barkan in designing four meditation pavilions that she hopes UCLA will erect for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Conceived as spaces of respite for athletes \u2014 whom Opie believes are more often commodified than nurtured \u2014 the pavilions will incorporate photos by the artist that reflect California\u2019s \u201cfragile environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spaces are intended as places of contemplation and rejuvenation for the athletes. Although Opie could use some of that herself, she shows no signs of slowing down. Despite bouts of grief and political anxiety, she remains resolute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll cry in the day and then get back up and ride into the sunset.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Opie, endurance remains its own form of hope.<\/p>\n

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Holding Blue<\/p>\n

Where: Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles
When: May 28-July 3<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

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California Light and Space (The 21st Century version)<\/p>\n

Where: David Zwirner, 606 N Western Ave., Los Angeles
When: June 4 to August 1<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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