Catherine Opie: Genre / Gender / Portraiture

Nearly four decades of work from the photographer who redefined the expression of gender in contemporary queer portraitureA leading voice in contemporary photography, Catherine Opie has been known for her portraits of the queer scene in California since the late 1980s.A fundamental element of Opie’s work is the observation of different gender performances through a critical revision of the genre of portraiture.Her photography emphasizes how portraiture has the power to both reinforce and deconstruct conventional and binary expressions of gender.The title of this publication and the MASP exhibition it accompanies is based on the double meaning of the word gênero in Portuguese, meaning both “gender” and “genre.”For her first solo show in Brazil, Opie enters into dialogue with the tradition of the portrait-a way of representing the human figure that dates to the 15th century in the West-producing an archive of diverse presentations of gender and sexuality.Around 60 photographs from her mo