Catherine Opie

(Born 1961 in Sandusky, Ohio)

Untitled #1(Michigan Womyn's Music Festival), 2010
Inkjet print
37.5 x 50 in.
Gift of Catherine Opie

In her photographs, Catherine Opie frequently combines portraits and landscapes to examine how people occupy places. Her series Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival documents a six-day international music festival that occurs every August outside Hart, Michigan. Drawing nearly 10,000 visitors annually, the festival is conceived, staffed, and run entirely by women. Rather than representing individuals, Opie focuses on the landscape that has united and come to define the women who congregate in Michigan each year. Through a sea of tents, bodies, and trees, Opie offers a portrait of collective identity, an idyllic version of female solidarity and community.

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