Mike and Sky

1993 - Photography (Photography)

Catherine Opie

location: Los Angeles, California
year born: 1961
gender: female
nationality: American
home town: Sandusky, Ohio

Like many of Opie’s works, Mike and Sky presents female masculinity to defy a binary understanding of gender. The very practice of being photographed raises many complex issues around gender performance and the relationships between an inner self and an outer public persona. Even though Mike and Sky are cropped and obscure one another, many of their choices for self-presentation—as emphasized by their tattoos—remain visible.


Since the 1990s, Catherine Opie has been recognized for her use of documentary photography to address issues of community and queerness, and the ways in which identity is shaped by architecture. Particularly resonant during the Culture Wars of the 1980s and early 1990s—a time in which the religious right tried to impose itself as a political force and cultural censor—Opie’s photographs privilege the representation of specific communities, whether the LGBT, teenagers, surfers, football players, or her group of friends who engage in sexual role playing, tattooing, and piercing.


Colors:



Perro en Tlalpan (Dog in Tlalpan)
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1992

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Untitled 3737 and Untitled 5157
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2005

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Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
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2017

Herculine’s Prophecy by Juliana Huxtable features a kneeling demon-figure on what appears to be a screen-print, placed on a wooden table, which has then been photographed and digitally altered to appear like a book cover, with a title and subtitle across the top, and a poem written across the bottom...

Untitled (Miller House, #02)
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2002

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The Tower of Babel: The Carnaval
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Du Zhenjun

2010

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Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists
© » ROYAL ACADEMY

Catherine Opie

Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts Catherine Opie in the RA Collection Gallery Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists Read more Become a Friend Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists Published 8 September 2023 Catherine Opie discusses her portraits of David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Gillian Wearing, Isaac Julien and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, featured in our free display in the Collection Gallery...

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
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Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Herculine's Profecy
© » KADIST

Juliana Huxtable

2017

Herculine’s Prophecy by Juliana Huxtable features a kneeling demon-figure on what appears to be a screen-print, placed on a wooden table, which has then been photographed and digitally altered to appear like a book cover, with a title and subtitle across the top, and a poem written across the bottom...

#17 Pink
© » KADIST

James Welling

2005

#17 Pink is a photogram, a photographic image produced without the use of a camera...

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Happy Birthday, Anthony Haden-Guest by Christopher Hart Chambers - New York
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Happy Birthday, Anthony Haden-Guest advertise donate post your art opening recent articles cities contact about article index podcast main February 2024 "The Best Art In The World" "The Best Art In The World" February 2024 Happy Birthday, Anthony Haden-Guest Courtesy of the author...

Nicolas Daubanes — Du béton, de l’acier et de la viande
© » SLASH PARIS

Nicolas Daubanes — Du béton, de l’acier et de la viande — La Maréchalerie, centre d’art contemporain — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Nicolas Daubanes — Du béton, de l’acier et de la viande — La Maréchalerie, centre d’art contemporain — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Nicolas Daubanes — Du béton, de l’acier et de la viande Exhibition Architecture, installation Closing Nicolas Daubanes, La grâce présidentielle, à la galerie Territoires Partagés, Marseille PAC 2022 © JC Lett Nicolas Daubanes Du béton, de l’acier et de la viande Ends in 6 days: September 22 → December 17, 2023 La pratique artistique de Nicolas Daubanes se déploie à travers le dessin, la sculpture, la vidéo et l’installation...

Epiphany…learnt through hardship
© » KADIST

Ryan Gander

2012

Epiphany…learnt through hardship is composed of a bronze sculpture depicting the model of the little dancer of Degas, in the pose of a female nude photographed by Edward Weston (Nude, 1936) accompanied by a blue cube...

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One Must
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1997

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8 Ball Surfboard
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Alexis Smith

1995

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Untitled Inkblot Drawing (CT-1491)
© » KADIST

Bruce Conner

1995

Bruce Conner is best known for his experimental films, but throughout his career he also worked with pen, ink, and paper to create drawings ranging from psychedelic patterns to repetitious inkblot compositions...

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Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists
© » ROYAL ACADEMY

Catherine Opie

Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts Catherine Opie in the RA Collection Gallery Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists Read more Become a Friend Video: Catherine Opie on photographing leading British artists Published 8 September 2023 Catherine Opie discusses her portraits of David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Gillian Wearing, Isaac Julien and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, featured in our free display in the Collection Gallery...

Freeway Series
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Catherine Opie

1994

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Cathy (bed self-portrait)
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1987

Catherine Opie’s candid photograph Cathy (bed Self-portrait) (1987) shows the artist atop a bed wearing a negligee and a dildo; the latter is attached to a whip that she holds in her teeth...

This Exhibition
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2004

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2004

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Burrito Bay
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George Kuchar

2009

Burrito Bay is a video by George Kuchar that follows the format of a diary or travelogue centered on a tropical trip to Acapulco, Mexico...

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Untitled (Blue Chapel)
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1985

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“Somewhere, Elsewhere, Anywhere, Nowhere” is a record and reflection of Spring 2014 artist-in-residence Marcelo Cidade’s displacement of a parking lot at Kadist’s gallery in San Francisco...