Artworks

Catherine Opie

American, b. 1961

Sleep (The Modernist), 2016

Pigment print

Paper Dimensions: 40 x 26 5/8 inches (101.6 x 67.6 cm)

Framed Dimensions: 41 x 27 7/8 x 2 inches (104.1 x 70.8 x 5.1 cm)

Edition of 5, 2 AP

© Catherine Opie, courtesy of Regen Projects and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London

These stills from Catherine Opie’s first film, also on view in this exhibition, feature the trans artist Pig Pen, a longtime friend and frequent subject of Opie’s work since the early 1990s. Here, they occupy (and incinerate) spaces conceived from utopian midcentury-modern promises of an egalitarian future, the mass-produced comforts of home available to all through jet-age innovation and technology. In the 21st century, such houses are collected as exclusive bastions of the jet-setting and acquisitive 1 percent, who populate the hills overlooking Hollywood in their vintage trophy homes. Drawing inspiration from Chris Marker’s post-apocalyptic film La Jetée (1962) — itself composed of still images — Opie transforms science fiction of the future to a faux-documentary here and now, with references to the sky-high art market (of which she is a part), the 2016 election, and California’s literal trials by fire that engulf the state as we stand here. Opie’s is an astute articulation of our 21st-century war of the worlds.