Freeway Series

1994 - Photography (Photography)

2.25H x 6.75W inches each

Catherine Opie

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

Although best known as a provocateur and portraitist, Opie also photographs landscapes, cityscapes, and architecture. The Freeway Series was developed in 1995, right after the artist’s inclusion in that year’s Whitney Biennial. As if suggesting that her work should not be restricted to being seen through overtly political or activist lenses, this series lends insight into the city of Los Angeles via its most characteristic urban feature: its highways. By documenting the monumental concrete structures devoid of humans or vehicles, one is suddenly conscious of their real scale, an element only emphasized by the small format of the printed photographs. The otherwise unnoticed massive structures are thus made strange. Like Allen Ruppersberg’s Untitled (City Limits) , which also are taken along the freeway, Opie’s photographs have particular resonance within the Kadist’s “101 Collection.”


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:



Mother Pig, Shushi Gallery, San Diego Performance
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

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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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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

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Untitled (Sten-Frenke House #04)
© » KADIST

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2007

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Visalia Livestock Market, Visalia, California
© » KADIST

Sharon Lockhart

2011

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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...

Untitled (City Limits)
© » KADIST

Allen Ruppersberg

1970

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The Art of Fashion and Legacy: Carla Sozzani and Byronesque’s Unique Collaboration
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The Art of Fashion and Legacy: Carla Sozzani and Byronesque’s Unique Collaboration – A Shaded View on Fashion https://byronesque.com/fondazione_sozzani/ Dear Shaded Viewers, In a remarkable intersection of art and fashion, Carla Sozzani, the revered figure in the world of fashion, has embarked on a unique collaboration with Byronesque...

Shadows V, Set of 3
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Charles Gaines

1980

To make his series Shadows (1980), Gaines subjected 20 potted plants to a uniform procedure...

Bérénice Reynaud (1950's- 2023)
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Press Release: Art21 to Release New Film: “Hannah Levy’s Adaptive Structures”
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One Must
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1997

In One Must , an image of a pair of scissors, accompanied by the words of work’s title, poses an ominous question about the relationship between the image and the text...

Towhead n’Ganga enclosed in darkness, lorded over by the sexualized folded high priestless form
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Mike Kelley

1996

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8 Ball Surfboard
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Alexis Smith

1995

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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...

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...

Raven (gun)
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1987

In this work, a woman sits on a couch with her shirt pulled up to expose her pierced nipples, which are connected by a chain...

This Exhibition
© » KADIST

Tino Sehgal

2004

Tino Sehgal’s This Exhibition requires an interpreter (in this particular piece, a gallery attendant) to faux faint each and every time a visitor enters into a given space...

Wright Imperial Hotel
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Abraham Cruzvillegas

2004

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In the Collage II (Marie)
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Collier Schorr

2013

In the Collage II (Marie) (2013), Shorr seems to have an ostensibly clear subject, a female subject identified in the work’s title as “Marie,” a slim but athletic woman with brown hair pictured reclining atop a brilliantly white sheet draped against a marbled tan-and-white backdrop...

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When Taylor Swift came to Brazil
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Swipe
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2016

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Sam Contis Asks What It Means to Move through the Landscape
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