Catherine Opie, Sheats-Goldstein #3 (2016), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Regen Projects in Los Angeles, Catherine Opie returns to her home city for a show of new works that present the city in all of its fascinating, and occasionally frightening nuances.  Continuing her photographic practice through a wide range of images and iconographies, the current show, The Modernist also features the artist’s debut filmic project.

Catherine Opie, The Modernist (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Artist Catherine Opie has joined the board of the Mike Kelley Foundation. “Cathy’s strong voice, energy, and commitment to the arts as an artist, teacher, and advocate will undoubtedly deepen our efforts and will be invaluable to the development of our organization,” says Mary Clare Stevens, the foundation’s executive director. (more…)

Catherine Opie, Cecilia, 2013 © Catherine Opie. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

Two discernible genres in photography, portrait and documentation determine Catherine Opie’s current dual-gallery exhibition at Lehmann Maupin in New York.  In her inaugural exhibition at the gallery, Opie comes in full throttle, presenting her well-regarded photo-portraits alongside a group of abstracted landscapes in Chelsea, as well as her documentation of the late Elizabeth Taylor’s L.A. mansion in the gallery’s Lower East Side location. (more…)

Catherine Opie, Julie & Pigpen (2012), via Regen Projects

The photographic work of artist Catherine Opie has long been interested with context, how the architecture of the frame, staging, and positioning of the subjects opens the door to new readings, implications and relationships within the work itself.  Blending historical references with cultural signifiers and assiduous attention to the color and detail, Opie’s work initiates striking dialogues on identity and meaning in American culture.

Catherine Opie (Installation View), via Regen Projects

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Artist Catherine Opie recently spoke with ArtInfo about the potential merger of LACMA and MOCA, and her views on the institutions’ futures. Opie left MOCA’s board of directors last year amid criticism of the museum’s administrative direction.  “I know there’s a LACMA offer on the table and personally I think that would amazing,” Opie said. “LACMA has an amazing ability to raise money, Michael Govan has done an incredible job with that campus.  If he feels like he can take that on and turn things around it would be incredible.”  (more…)

Image: Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper and Silver Pillows, The New York Times

“Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” is a group show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that juxtaposes fifty Warhol works with one hundred of those by his peers and successors. The show attempts to capture the scope and breadth of Warhol’s impact on contemporary art history. Presented 25 years after his death at the age of 58 in 1987, the exhibition showcases the works of both artists who have risen to fame after Warhol’s death as well that of his contemporaries. Some of the artists included are Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, Ed Ruscha, Alex Katz, Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter.

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Image: Sean Daly, Shaun Regen, Kathryn Bigelow, and John Loga via Vogue

Shaun Caley Regen opened her new location in Los Angeles last night at 6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, in a newly developing section of Hollywood, just east of Highland Avenue. The new space was designed by architect Michael Maltzan, creating a museum-like exhibition venue.

Image: Regen Projects’ inaugural exhibition via Regen Projects

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Former MOCA Chief Executive Charles E. Young has called for the removal of museum director Jeffrey Deitch following a tumultuous month that included the resignation of long-time curator Paul Schimmel and artists John Baldessari, Catherine Opie, Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha. In an email to donor and influential board member Eli Broad, Young concluded that “I will do anything I can to try to right the MOCA ship, but nothing will work, in my mind, without a new Captain/Director.”

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Amidst the resignation of chief curator Paul Schimmel and artist-trustees Catherine Opie, Barbara Kruger, John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha,MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch responds to recent criticisms in an open letter and also an interview in which he rejects the notion of a more “celebrity-driven” exhibition program. “I believe that an art exhibition can be engaging, fun and deeply intellectually satisfying and serious,” Deitch said. “These are not contradictory concepts in art.”

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Ed Ruscha has resigned from the Board of Trustees at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Following Joh Baldessari, Catherine Opie and Barbara Kruger’s departure over the dismissal of long time curator Paul Schimmel, the board is now with no artist representation. In a letter to museum director Jeffrey Deitch, Ruscha was candid; “My defection may look obvious, but it will be all the better for the museum, which is on a course different than I imagined, but one I hope to support in the future.”

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Barbara Kruger and Catherine Opie resign from MOCA board, following John Baldessari’s leave last Thursday after curator Paul Schimmel’s departure following reported conflicts with new Director  Jeffrey Deitch.  Opie stated that: “I love and respect MOCA. It’s the first place I’ve ever had a solo museum show, and it’s had a profound influence on artists in Los Angeles, but the museum is taking such a different direction now… What concerns me is seeing the museum embracing more celebrity and fashion.”

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Catherine Opie, Faifo (2008). All Photos courtesy Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

Catherine Opie’s current exhibition, the photographer’s first since joining the roster at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, is on view now at the gallery’s Chelsea location in New York City. Shot from 2007-2009, High School Football, consists of large-scale portraits and landscape shots of playing fields. Through the American ritual of football, the identities of young athletes are displayed intimately, both individually and as teams.

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Lawrence Weiner, At a Distance to the Foreground (1999). All images Nicolas Linnert for Art Observed.

Closing this week is Paula Cooper Gallery’s group exhibition Locations, a showcase of work by fifteen artists involving mapping and locality. At a moment when art and its surrounding socioeconomic structure have moved steadily to occupy a global, deterritorialized sphere, this arrangement of works is distinctive in its look back to a mid-century Modernist practice regarding spatial surroundings.

Installation view at Paula Cooper Gallery.

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Idexa, Catherine Opie (2008)

Currently on view at Gladstone Gallery’s 24th st location is “Girlfriends,” by Catherine Opie. The works exhibited are a play on Richard Prince’s biker girlfriends and seek to explore the nature of “butch-dyke” identity. “An ode” to her former life, before domesticity and motherhood, Opie’s new works refer back to the subject matter that propelled her into the limelight in the early 1990s: her friends and partners in the gay, lesbian, and trans leather community. This return to the artist’s roots is highlighted by the inclusion of a series of small black-and-white portraits of androgynous young women that Opie made as a freshman in the early ’90s and has since kept to herself.

Angela (head), Catherine Opie (1992)

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Futura, Jules de Balincourt, Dustin Yellin, Eric White, Tom Sachs, Shepard Fairey, Jeffrey Deitch, Lance Armstrong, Mark Parker, Geoff McFetridge, José Parlá, Dzine posing in front of a painting by Cai Guo Qiang; photo courtesy of Black Frame

A day before seven bicycles with frames designed by contemporary artists, and used by Lance Armstrong in his comeback season for July’s Tour de France, raised $1.3 million, an exhibition of artwork commissioned to benefit the legendary cyclist’s cancer foundation opened at Deitch Projects.  Launched in Paris at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, STAGES- the exhibit comprised of commissioned works created by over twenty established contemporary artists, is currently on view at New York’s Deitch Projects. Artists involved include Cai Guo-Qiang, Rosson Crow, Shepard Fairey, KAWS, Yoshitomo Nara, Catherine Opie, Os Gemeos, Raymond Pettibon, Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha and Tom Sachs. STAGES will run through November 21, 2009.  AO interviews some of the artists to find out their personal connection to the cause of STAGES, their view on creating commissioned work and the story of their involvement with the project powered by Lance Armstrong Foundation and Nike and its goal of raising awareness of cancer.

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Rosson Crow in front of her piece “Texas Cycle Show”

Works presented in STAGES manifest not merely a vast array of mediums and stylistic approaches, they also speak of a multitude of equally appropriate paths the artists have taken in building the show.

Rosson Crow about STAGES: “This whole thing is incredible and overwhelming, it is a really awesome show with a great cause. Charity work is something that I love doing so this was a really cool opportunity. This painting that I did for the show is called ‘Texas Cycle Show’ and is based on an 1800′ cycle exposition. I made it Texas because both Lance and I are from Texas… kind of bringing the historical Texas vibe… and of course the bicycles I thought were perfect for a Lance Armstrong show [laughs]” When asked about any personal connections that the artist has with the cause, Rosson Crow comments that “it is hard to find anybody whose life has not been affected by cancer, so I think that everybody has a personal relationship to it in some way.”

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Yoshitomo Nara, “Fire” via STAGES

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Her Daddy’s Money and Her Momma’s Good Looks, Rosson Crow (2009). Via Honor Fraser

The summer show ‘Bitch Is The New Black’ at Honor Fraser, Los Angeles will continue until August 29th. Curated by a former editor at ArtReview, Emma Gray, the exhibition showcases the work of 14 local female artists.

Thematically, the exhibition was inspired by the Anne Sexton poem, “Consorting with Angels”. The title comes from an altogether different source; a snippet of dialogue broadcast on Saturday Night Live during the 2008 Presidential Election. During the aforementioned sketch, Tina Fey celebrated the idea of a woman president as a “bitch” by reasoning that “bitches get things done“.

Untitled, Catherine Opie (1993). Via Honor Fraser

RELATED LINKS:
Honor Fraser Homepage [HonorFraser.com]
‘Bitch Is The New Black’ exhibition page [HonorFraser.com]
Consorting with Angels by Anne Sexton [Google Books]
Art Review: “The New Black” at Honor Fraser [Los Angeles Times]

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Exhibition view, “The Female Gaze: Woman Look at Women,” at Cheim & Read. Pictured works include Victoria Civera’s Searcher (far left) and Vanessa Beecroft’s Blonde Figure Lying (floor).

Through September 19, 2009, Cheim & Read will show “The Female Gaze: Women Look At Women.”  Featured are works by women of women, with aim to reorient the typically-male framing of women in art.  Works range in medium from the paintings of Alice Neel and Lisa Yuskavage to the sculptures of Kara Walker, the text poems of Jenny Holzer and the photographs by Diane Arbus, the installations by Louise Bourgeois and even collage work by Ellen Gallagher.

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Cheim & Read – Exhibition – The Female Gaze [Cheim and Read]
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Now Hanging: Girlie Show [The Moment Blog, New York Times]
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The Female Gaze, The Cheim and Read Gallery, New York [Financial Times]
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The Female Gaze: Women look at Women [Artforum]
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“The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women” at Cheim & Reid [Contemporary Art Daily]

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Cindy Sherman, Untitled, at Cheim & Read.

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Ed Ruscha’s ‘Vital to the Core’ via STAGES

On view now at Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris is ‘STAGES,’ a fundraising exhibition organized by Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong, featuring artists such as Ed Ruscha, Shepard Fairey, Richard Prince, and a number of others. The exhibition runs concurrently with the Tour de France, which ends on Sunday, July 26th. In addition to the gallery exhibition, which is planned to tour the world after its run at Emmanuel Perrotin, Livestrong has teamed up with Nike and Supertouch to curate a line of artist-designed bikes for Lance to ride during the Tour. Those artists include KAWS, Yoshitomo Nara, and Damien Hirst, who designed the bike for the final stage of the Tour de France. ‘STAGES’ runs July 15-August 8, 2009 at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, after which it will open at the Armory Center in New York on October 2, according to the LA Times.

The Bike Shepard Fairey designed for Lance Armstrong via Supertouch

STAGES09
Hirst to Help Lance Armstrong’s Health Charity Raise $4 Million [Bloomberg]
Damien Hirst Has Designs on Lance Armstrong’s Bike [NY Times]
Nike Livestrong STAGES Exhibition [High Snobiety]
Preview: Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG x Nike Stages Exhibition @ Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin [Arrested Motion]
Lance Armstrong x Nike Sportswear – “Stages” Touring Art Exhibition Supporting Livestrong [Arrested Motion]
Lance Armstrong x Nike Sportswear “Stages” Touring Art Exhibition [Hypebeast]
Lance Armstrong x Trek x Damien Hirst Stages Project Bike [Limited Hype]
Marc Newson for Lance Armstrong – TREK Art Bike [Freshness]
Lance Armstrong’s New Trek Madone Bikes By Kaws & Barry McGee [High Snobiety]
Tom Sachs‘ Lance’s TequilaBike For Girls [The World’s Best Ever]
Stages exhibition, Paris [Wallpaper]
Interview: KAWS @ Stages, Paris [DailyduJour]
AFC+: Will Damien Hirst Remind Lance Armstrong of His Mortality? [Art Fag City]
PARIS///LANCE ARMSTRONG’S TREK ART BIKES COME TO LIFE IN THE WINDOW OF COLETTE [Supertouch]
NEWS///LANCE ARMSTRONG SURGES BACK TO ACTION IN THE TOUR DE FRANCE ON A MARC NEWSON TREK TTX ART BIKE [Supertouch]
ANNOUNCING “STAGES”: LANCE ARMSTRONG’S SUPERTOUCH-CURATED ANTI-CANCER ART SHOW OPENING JULY 16TH [Supertouch]
Lance Armstrong rides bike decorated by Damien Hirst [Art Review]
L.A. artists lend a hand to Lance Armstrong [LA Times]
Livestrong x Stages | Recap [Limited Hype]
Trek Lance Armstrong STAGES Bike by Yoshitomo Nara [Hypebeast]

The bike Yoshitomo Nara designed for Lance Armstrong for the Tour de France via Hypebeast

more images and story after the jump…

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Self Portrait / Cutting (1993) by Catherine Opie

The Guggenheim Museum on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is currently featuring a comprehensive midcareer survey of Catherine Opie’s work, which blends high formalism with unconventional subjects, often from society’s margins. The exhibition encompasses most of the photographer’s output, which ranges from portraiture to urban landscape photography, and includes more than 200 works. Opie first came to prominence after ‘Being and Having’ (1991) and ‘Portraits’ (1993-1997), shows that focused on queer communities and culture in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with many of the heavily pierced and tattooed sitters coming from the queer artist and sadomasochist subcultures.  The artist also gave her subjects exaggerated facial hair to make their gender even more opaque and transmutable, exposing the subjectivity of sexual and gender ideology.

Guggenheim Museum: Catherine Opie: American Photographer
Regen Projects: Catherine Opie
A Retrospective of Many Artists, All of Them One Woman [New York Times]
Shock and awe of another age [Financial Times]
Doug McClemont on Catherine Opie at the Guggenheim [Saatchi Online]
The AI Interview: Catherine Opie [ArtInfo]
Dykes! Tutus! Off-ramps! The Guggenheim Mounts a Catherine Opie Retrospective [Village Voice]

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“Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio” by Lucio Fontana via Christie’s

Highest-valued sale Christie’s has yet to auction during Frieze Art week will be a Lucio Fontana egg-shaped canvas estimated at $21.8 million [Bloomberg]
LACMA announces $55 million gift directed toward new pavilion amongst other endeavors from POM Wonderful and Fiji water owners [ArtDaily]
Street artist Kaws, now at Emmanuel Perrotin in Miami (as covered by AO here), collaborates on shoes with Marc Jacobs [TheWorldsBestEver]
An interview with Catherine Opie, whose work can now be seen at the Guggenheim [Artforum]
Ukrainian (not Russian, as cited in linked article) steel oligarch Victor Pinchuk announces Director for his new Kiev museum and that he was in fact a major buyer at Hirst’s Sotheby’s auction [ArtInfo]

Brice Marden via the The New York Observer

Artist Brice Marden is redeveloping a hotel in the Caribean island of Nevis [NYObserver]
S&M self-portraiture coming to the Guggenheim with Catherine Opie retrospective [NYTimes TMagazine]
After 30 years, lawyer on trial for attempting to profit off stolen art, including a $29.3M Cezanne [Artinfo]
Fake American Apparel ads in Brooklyn reference Jeff Koons and perhaps Damien Hirst [AnimalNY]
Ed Ruscha’s open-air studio in Venice Beach, CA may become a city parking lot [NYTimes]
The 100% self made custom wardrobe of artist Mike Latham, of Art’s Corporation, features his signature barcode [NYSun]