You Down With Opie?

What forces, external and internal, determine who we are and how we act? To what extent is a country’s collective identity reflective of its inhabitants? Catherine Opie: An American Photographer, a photographic exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, is a superb assemblage of Catherine Opie’s most compelling works that seeks to redefine the nebulous concept of the “American identity.” Opie’s photos deal with a wide array of topics, ranging from homosexuality to freeways. Her Portrait series, for example, is a brilliant portrayal of the vibrant queer subculture existing in mid 90s America. Glorifying one’s sexual orientation as a fundamental factor of identity, her portraits are not only aesthetically stunning, but provocative as well. Similarly, her Domestic series is a collection of photographs documenting the daily lives of lesbian families, providing a unique perspective of “how the other half lives.” Deviating from the human element of photography, the exhibition also features selections from her American Cities and Freeways series. The incorporation of these photos was a very wise decision by the museum’s curator, serving to juxtapose raw emotion and sexuality with landscapes that are completely void of life. In doing so, Opie ties together the elements that truly define “America” in terms of one’s sense of self and community. The exhibition is one that should not be missed.