Catherine Opie
harmony is fraught
January 11 – March 3, 2024
Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Catherine Opie’s eleventh exhibition with Regen Projects, harmony is fraught presents over sixty photographs never shown publicly before, drawn from over thirty years of making pictures in and of Los Angeles. We see a deeply singular diary of Opie’s world—especially her early years as an emerging artist in the 1990s—intertwined with the complex public life of the city she made her home, from its signature freeways and landmarks, like the Hollywood sign, to scenes of activism and surfers at the beach. Together, they collectively trace a profoundly personal story, as well as the evolving drama and common grandeur of Los Angeles itself, a singular assembly of constructions, conflicts, and communities.
Installed in carefully considered constellations, photographs of freeways and bridges connect and encircle images of more private destinations, portraits of intimates, and telling interiors. Opie likens the literal, tender, resilient human body to the great corpus of the mutable city, always growing, aging, breaking, standing firm—another body with its own queer logic. Curiously, despite the quarter of a century or more that separates us from the moment of their making, many of these images seem to proffer the same city we know now. Likewise, we see subjects yearning for many of the same suspended desires or imperiled freedoms we seek today, evidencing a constancy (or stasis) that can be both touching and deeply unsettling.
Noting faces familiar from prior bodies of work, as in Pig Pen, 1994, Trash, 1994, Being and Having Gang, 1990/2024, Idexa and Denix, 2002, or Oliver with Turkey, 2004/2024, we see people beloved and exposed, humbly clothed, and radically embellished. Friends, lovers, and children gaze back at us. Some remain close to this day. Others have been lost, attenuated by the distance occasioned by the shifts of life and passing time. There they are: shaving, sleeping, pondering, protesting; posing, reposing; dancing, basking. Meanwhile, the city is burning, building, parking, driving; floating, hovering, waiting.
The exhibition also features a never-before-seen video of Self-Portrait/Cutting, 1993 in the making as well as a monumental nighttime exterior shot of The Palms, one of the longest running lesbian bars in Los Angeles (which closed in West Hollywood in 2013). Printed to match the scale of the lost landmark and installed along the gallery’s longest interior wall, it is visible from and converses with the real street beside it. Underscoring a recurring meditation, it dramatizes how our experiences of a place—even one as vast as LA—derives as much from a patchwork of memories, of the handful of highly specific places and people we returned to more times than we can count, as (if not more than) the structures that survive. harmony is fraught plots a kind of ghost map of sites and personae that arise before us here like a splendid mirage, an oasis of queer pasts made present, flirting with the future.
Catherine Opie
Marusya Bociurkiw, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Stanya and Harry, 2005
2005/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Pig Pen, 1994
1994/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Being and Having Gang, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Sky and Mike, Cruising, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Gauntlet Group, 1995
1995/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Trash, 1994
1994/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
105 Freeway, 1994
1994/2024
Pigment print
28 1/4 x 83 1/4 x 2 inches (71.8 x 211.5 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
6th St. Bridge Construction, 2022
2022/2024
Pigment print
31 x 46 x 2 inches (78.7 x 116.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Mariella's Tacos/Uprising, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
31 x 46 x 2 inches (78.7 x 116.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
MacArthur Park Subway and My House, 1989
1989/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Tony Greene's Studio, September 12, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
24 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (62.2 x 62.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Judie Bamber, 1993
1993/2024
Pigment print
20 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (52.1 x 77.5 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Richard Hawkins in our studio, 1988
1988/2024
Pigment print
31 x 41 x 2 inches (78.7 x 104.1 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Sultry Secrets, 1994
1994/2024
Pigment print
21 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (54.6 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Pam shaving, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
24 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (62.2 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Angela Schierl, 1991
1991/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Ellie, 1996
1996/2024
Pigment print
38 1/2 x 31 x 2 inches (97.8 x 78.7 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Fake Sleeping, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
12 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (31.8 x 47 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Girls on Patrol, 1989
1989/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 57.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
L.A. Gay Rodeo, 1989
1989/2024
Pigment print
17 1/2 x 24 x 1 1/2 inches (44.5 x 61 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Bill Jones, 1993
1993/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Sarah Schulman, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Hollywood, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Lindsay & Miss B in the wild, 2009
2009/2024
Pigment print
31 x 46 x 2 inches (78.7 x 116.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Matias Viegner, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
John Greyson, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Surfer Landscape, 2003
2003/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
USC Rape Protest, 2021
2021/2024
Pigment print
31 x 46 x 2 inches (78.7 x 116.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Day before the O.J. Verdict, 1995
1995/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
End Thee Insanity, 1989
1989/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Ian needles and flowers, 1993
1993/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Christian, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
38 1/2 x 31 x 2 inches (97.8 x 78.7 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Jenny Shimizu, 2009
2009/2024
Pigment print
27 x 20 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (68.6 x 52.1 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Gay Pride Day, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
18 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (47 x 62.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Yes Ma'am, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
38 1/2 x 31 x 2 inches (97.8 x 78.7 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Kacuilya's Birthday Invite, 1998
1998/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
L.A. Snow, 2023
2023/2024
Pigment print
30 1/4 x 39 3/4 x 2 inches (76.8 x 101 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
L.A. Uprising, Catalina Rooftop, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Langer's, 1989
1989/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Lamb of God/Daryl and Pig Pen, 1996
1996/2024
Pigment print
38 1/2 x 31 x 2 inches (97.8 x 78.7 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Idexa and Denix, 2002
2002/2024
Pigment print
11 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (29.2 x 29.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Oliver/Thanksgiving, 2004
2004/2024
Pigment print
24 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (62.2 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Self-Portrait/Cutting contact sheet, 2003
2003/2024
Pigment print
20 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (52.1 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Sunday morning, 1989
1989/2024
Pigment print
31 x 41 x 2 inches (78.7 x 104.1 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Cathy, desert edge, 1987
1987/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Medicine Cabinet, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
41 x 33 x 2 inches (104.1 x 83.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
1860 Loma Vista Dr., 1995
1995/2024
Pigment print
31 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (78.7 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Catherine and Millie, 1994
1994/2024
Pigment print
31 x 41 x 2 inches (78.7 x 104.1 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Club Fuck, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
31 x 46 x 2 inches (78.7 x 116.8 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Raven, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
31 x 31 x 2 inches (78.7 x 78.7 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
6th Street Bridge, 2022
2022/2024
Pigment print
31 1/4 x 81 1/4 x 2 inches (79.4 x 206.4 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
AB101 Demonstration, 1991
1991/2024
Pigment print
31 x 41 x 2 inches (78.7 x 104.1 x 5.1 cm)
Catherine Opie
Licking Sheree, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
24 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (62.2 x 41.9 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Cliff, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
14 1/2 x 9 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches (36.8 x 24.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Seduce, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
14 1/2 x 9 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches (36.8 x 24.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Christian & Cliff, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
LACE/All But The Obvious, 1990
1990/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 62.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Club Fuck #1, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Front Desk, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Dancing Crystal Cross, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 62.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Ron, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Club Fuck #2, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 62.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
FUCK!, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (41.9 x 62.2 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Mike Glass, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
Catherine Opie
Club Fuck Halloween, 1992
1992/2024
Pigment print
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (24.8 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm)
