Catherine Opie: The Pause That Dreams Against Erasure

Curatorial team: Jasmin Meinold and Moritz Wesseler

Questions about what defines a person, what influences shape them, how social stereotypes can be overcome, and what alternative lifestyles could be conceivable and realistic options are all questions that form the core framework of Catherine Opie's practice. Since the early 1990s, the artist has been developing a complex, cross-genre body of work that includes photographs in particular, but also films, art books, and installations. 

Born in 1961 in Sandusky, Ohio, and now living in Los Angeles, Opie works with three fundamental photographic genres: landscape, portrait, and documentation. These serve less as fixed categories and more as points of departure for a continuous exploration of issues of visibility and representation as well as the practice of photography as an act of witnessing. Her work combines documentary precision with artistic composition and poetic depth—from the early portrait photographs of her queer community, inspired by the painting tradition of the Renaissance, to series that explore landscape as a resonant space for identity, hope, and trauma, to her haunting documentaries of social movements such as Black Lives Matter to protest marches in the context of Donald Trump's presidency.

As a keen observer of society, Opie picks up on the tradition of 20th century socially engaged documentary photography—shaped by photographic stances of the likes of Lewis Hine, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Dorothea Lange—and updates it in a far-sighted, empathetic way.

With The Pause That Dreams Against Erasure, the Fridericianum presents Opie's first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, offering comprehensive insight into the artist's practice with more than 70 works spanning more than three decades.

The exhibition is being generously sponsored by Maria Seferian.

The Kunsthalle receives further significant support from the Rudolf Augstein Stiftung.