Catherine Opie’s To Be Seen: portraits of queer America

To Be Seen is Catherine Opie’s first large museum exhibition in Britain, gathering key works that reach back to the 1990s. Mythic and personal, the photographs map American landscape and family while centring gay, lesbian and queer lives largely absent from mainstream art history.

Opie is about to take the show to the National Portrait Gallery in London. The exhibition includes some of her most recognised images: the androgynous Pig Pen, the Being and Having series of 13 butch lesbians wearing stick-on facial hair, Dyke, with Steakhouse’s ornate tattooed script, and the notorious Self Portrait/Cutting.

Britain, London

catherine opie, queer america, portraits, national portrait, london, pig pen, being series, dyke, self portrait, 1990s