CATHERINE OPIE (b. 1961, OH),

'Mx. Justin Vivian Bond (Kiki DuRane)' 1993/2008 (from the Portrait series)

SIGNED Color Photograph

Digital Inkjet Print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper, 1993/2008, ed. 100. Dimensions: 10" x 8" sheet. SIGNED and dated by artist and numbered '27/100' in black marker on verso. Excellent condition, with no visible defects. Buyer pays $15 U.S. shipping via USPS Priority Mail.

Catherine Opie's photography is many ways is an extended and ongoing self portrait, from herself in a variety of roles to the people she knows well through to the environments they variously inhabit, and onto the travels she takes into the interior of the US or along the coast. 'Justin Bond' is from the 'family' Opie knew best in the mid 1990s and is part of the 'Portrait' series that catapulted her to fame. Opie usually works small scale and 'Justin Bond' is typical of much of her portrait work – flat background, formal pose, careful presentation from shoe to collar to hair and makeup – nothing is out of place.

This is an iconic Opie photograph of the period which is revealing of two of her most important influences for portraiture – August Sander and Hans Holbein.

Justin Vivian Bond (b. 1963, MD) is a transgender American singer-songwriter, performance artist, and Radical Faerie. Bond eschews gender-specific honorifics and pronouns, preferring "Mx." and "V" respectively. Bond has received numerous accolades for his work including the Obie Award (2001), Bessie Award (2004), and Ethyl Eichelberger Award (2007). Bond was also nominated for a Tony Award in 2007. His memoir, Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels, is slated for publication by The Feminist Press in September 2011.

Bond is best known for one of his drag incarnations, Kiki DuRane, an aging, bitter chanteuse known for her raucous and edgy medleys of unusual cover songs. She performs with her piano-playing sidekick, Herb (played by Kenny Mellman), as Kiki and Herb. Their show Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway was nominated for a 2007 Tony for Special Theatrical Event.

Born in Sandusky, OH, Catherine Opie received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Opie's work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan: The Walker Art Center, Minneopolis, MN; St. Louis Art Museum, MO; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK; Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK; Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy; and Ginza Art Space, Tokyo, Japan. She is currently a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA.

Catherine Opie has become known for her photographic portraits of gay communities and American urban landscapes ranging from large color images of Beverly Hills and Bel Air homes to small jewel-like silver gelatin prints of the Los Angeles freeways. Moving from the territory of the body to the structure of the city and its surrounding landscape, Opie is engaged in what curator and writer, Joshua Decter describes as "cultural portraiture". Her subject matters vary from the Minneapolis/St. Paul vernacular landscape of skyways, to large-format images of ice-fishing houses and portraits of a clan of surfers who await the perfect wave. As such, Opie has become one of the nation's most important photographers today documenting the American scene through regional landscapes and cultural portraiture.

Since the prominent debut of her classically composed but often shocking images capturing Los Angeles's gay subculture, Opie has continued to explore the rich terrain of cultural portraiture and the documentary tradition in America. In its compelling clarity and inherent variation, her work reveals a deeply personal commitment to the dignity of her subjects.  

SELECT RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2012
'Catherine Opie: High School Football', Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY
'Catherine Opie Photographs Cliff May', Art, Design & Architecture (AD&A) Museum, University of California (UC) Santa Barbara, CA (2/26 - 6/17)

2011
'Catherine Opie', Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK
'More American Photographs' (group exhibition), CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco CA
'The Altered Landscape: Photographs of a Changing Environment' (group exhibition), Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
'Catherine Opie: Empty and Full', Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, MA

2010
'TRUST: Media City Seoul 2010' (group exhibition), Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
'Catherine Opie: Figure and Landscape', Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA
'Ars Homo Erotica' (group exhibition), National Museum, Warsaw, Poland
'Catherine Opie: High School Football Players', Sabine Knust Galerie, Munich, Germany
'Catherine Opie', Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy
'Catherine Opie: Twelve Miles to the Horizon', Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA
'Catherine Opie: Girlfriends', Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY
'Hard Targets' (group exhibition), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH