Acclaimed Photographer Catherine Opie To Bring Her Survey Exhibition to Australia for the First Time

For the first time ever, acclaimed American photographer Catherine Opie will bring her first survey exhibition, Catherine Opie: Binding Ties, to Australia. Heide Museum of Modern Art will showcase more than 50 key works spanning the artist’s historic and recent practice, most notably her portraits of the queer community in which she lives.

Since the 1990s, Catherine Opie’s photographs have challenged and illuminated our understanding of notions of personal and political affiliation, the central theme of the exhibition. At Opie’s first showing in Australia, in 1994, Heide exhibited 18 of Opie’s portraits in the exhibition Persona Cognita, curated by Juliana Engberg. Now almost three decades later, visitors can see the first major survey of the artist’s work in this part of the world.

Opie remains well known for her portraits of leather dykes, drag performers and trans members of her queer community in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the ’90s, offering incisive commentary on identity expression and group membership. Her most recent series extends and contrasts this thinking, exploring the ways our identification as individuals is eclipsed by the more critical need for us to identify collectively, working together toward common goals of environmental sustainability and social equality.

Heide Museum of Modern Art artistic director Lesley Harding said in a statement: “The exhibition is an exciting opportunity to consider Opie’s remarkable body of work from new perspectives, from her iconic portraits of her friends and contemporaries to photographs and digital animations giving voice to political and environmental issues that concern and unite communities across the world.”

Catherine Opie: Binding Ties will run from April 1 to July 9, 2023 at Heide Museum of Modern Art.