Football and art collide at LACMA [Updated]

 
Well-known for her documentary photography, Catherine Opie has turned her introspective lens to  the all-American pastime of high school football in her most recent collection: "Catherine Opie: Figure and Landscape" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The Los Angeles-based artist became fascinated by the culture of the sport as it relates to the American landscape and the idea of identity after attending several of her nephews’ practices and games in Louisiana a few years ago. "The team becomes family and a community especially during a recession," Opie said. "People look at these games as a place to connect to others and figure out — where do we belong?"

For some parts of the country, namely the South, football is not just a sport; it’s a way of life, a religion of sorts. Opie herself grew up in Ohio where everyone, it seems, wanted to be a football player.

Her series of photos examines the gender identity of adolescent boys and masculinity as they transition to manhood. "It’s another chapter in her ongoing exploration of how gender constitutes identity and being part of a group within society can create or limit opportunities for shaping one’s life," said Britt Salvesen, curator and department head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA.

"We as a society think of high school football players as not being vulnerable," Opie said. "They are ‘the jocks’ or ‘the popular kids.’ We load ideas on them as to who they are or should be."

Opie wanted to break down that stereotype and capture the vulnerable side of that age group. Two examples: "Josh" whose stance typifies the stereotypical tough guy with intense eyes, bulging shoulder pads and six-pack abs, and "Adam," who expresses both a childlike innocence and teenage insecurity in a black T-shirt and tousled hair combed forward.

Since 2007 she has shot hundreds of portraits of enthusiastic football players and moments in between plays across seven states including Alaska, California, Louisiana and Texas. The background of the large color images on display subtly reveal the natural landscape of particular regions, such as the tall pines of Alaska or palm trees in Hawaii. Many photos are from the California desert town of Twentynine Palms. The sense of community there plays a vital role as it is home to the United States Marine Corps largest base and numerous players have parents stationed overseas. "For many of those young men it’s an uncertain time so the team framework is so meaningful," said Salvesen.

For many who don’t get offered a college scholarship, their only viable option is to enlist in the military. A few of the players Opie photographed during the three year project have been killed in Iraq.

"The same way AIDS devastated the gay and lesbian community, war is devastating this generation," said Opie, who spent the late ’80s and ’90s documenting the AIDS epidemic and other political and social issues affecting the gay population.

Included in the 40-piece collection, which is installed next to the Thomas Eakins "Manly Pursuits" show, are a group of landscape photographs and a series of surfer images. To celebrate the spirit of the exhibition, which runs through Oct. 17, the Crenshaw High School marching band will be performing in the plaza at LACMA on Sept. 24 from 5-8 p.m. [Update: The date and place for the Crenshaw High School marching band performance have changed; it will take place at 5 p.m. Sept. 21, starting at LACMA's park amphitheater.]

-- Liesl Bradner

Images: Top, Football landscape (Waianae vs. Leilehua, Waianae, Hawaii) 2009; right, "David, Austin & Bryant" 2007; bottom left, "Adam" 2007.

Credit : collection of the artist, Catherine Opie. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Comments

[Frazzled]

No matter how artless, boring or derivative Ms. Opie's work is, the fix is in on her ongoing glowing coverage from the gay art media and museum curators. She could intentionally make bad work and I guarantee the glowing praise would be the same.

[ToddCW]

Should give hope to the most talentless of photographers that they too may have a show at a museum.

[anon]

first 2 comments are spot on.

[Charlie Potts]

Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. Her success baffles me.

[Charles J]

I'm not gay, nor a museum curator. Nor am I anti-gay or anti-museum curator. I think Opie's work, in this show & elsewhere, is excellent. (There, I said it & I'm glad.)
As for 3 of the first 4 comments: There aint a broom wide enough to encompass your wide-sweeping generalizations.

[patrick]

Sometimes the comments are better than the actual article. Ouch.

[Brady Westwater]

I remember the first time I saw Cathy Opie's work over 20 years ago and how strongly I responded to it. She quickly became and remains one of LA's finest and most important artists. But artists, unfortunately, very rarely, are at their best when they directly comment on political issues as opposed to when they examine the human condition in all its complexity.

I would hope that Opie did not mean to equate the act of a person knowing going to war to serve their country - and then losing their life in combat - with the tragic consequences of dying after choosing to have unprotected sex, which is the most common, but not only way of being infected by AIDS.

Both types of deaths are tragedies and both need to be mourned. But they are different types of deaths and to say they are not, is an insult to all those who serve and have served in the armed forces.

Conversely, to compare the 4,500 soldiers who have died in combat the Iraq War - and the lesser number who have died in other recent wars - with the almost 600,000 people who have died in the AIDS epidemic - and the 17,000 18,000 a year - far more than have died in combat in all the wars since Vietnam - who are still dying from AIDS, tragically minimizes the overwhelming impact that AIDS had on the generation that suffered the most from it.

[Donald Frazell]

As a father, coach and mentor to many of these kids, had three other boys live with me besides my son, and almost all have played college ball and even pro, this is nonsense. Here in the LBC, Poly HS preciscely, we have had more NFL players than any other HS, though most of my kids play basketball, all are simply athletes, and can play any sport.

As the article says, this is an Introspective lens, and revealing of her, not the subjects. Gender identity is the last thing these kids have problems with, becoming a man and getting through the teenage years, where the brain rearranges itself and hormones begin to rage is the issue. Kids get lost, confused, and far too susceptible to peer pressure, but sexuality is known quite early in boys. Girls, many become lesbians because of abusive men, either family or lovers, though many are simply born that way. Pretty much all males are, the idea of a mans touch and scent on a hetero is simply repulsive. We know who we are in that sense, and at our reproductive peaks by 18. For that is what sex is truly about.

Opie scares people, and that is what you see in her photos, she is a self made freak, look at her. She doesnt have to look that way, it is a emotional issue and she finds an identity through it. And she uses it to freeze her subjects, "Just who is this crazy woman taking my photo and why am i here doing it?" The kids are not natural at all, what she sees as confusion may well simply be hers and her followers. They are just big glossy photos, I assume it is a large format camera and that would freeze the kids also, she is far from being a part of their world, like a Martian,and it shows.

Hers is weird psycho documentary, not about the subjects but herself. That isnt art, its therapy. And her fans join her in it. Art is the highest common denominator, not the lowest which is entertainment, nor the particular, which is of the individuals seperate physical, mental and emotional issues, While art is about revealing mind body and soul, that which makes us human, and bonded as one.

This aint it. You can like it, thats fine, it just aint art. Its psychodocumentation. But thats what they teach in art school these days, and so.....

art collegia delenda est

[ugh]

My opinions about this body of work aside, you can tell how impotent an argument is when a person resorts to hate speech. I'm repulsed by Frazell's comments (and not just for their bad grammar and incoherence). But perhaps it is for the best, as he is now unveiled his true character.

[Donald Frazell]

Where is the hate? Stop me when I am wrong. Have you looked at her and her work? think of a young boy haivng to deal with this situation, and what his response would be. Dont have to, you can see it in her work. I know teenage boys, she doesnt, the ya re but rohasac(sic) tests for her own needs They are about her,, not them or us.

[ugh]

What do you mean "us," Kemosabe?

[Donald Frazell]

Non artistes. She is of the academy, as corrupt today as it always has been, career is all.
And stop the PC garbage, thats for those who dont want to face reality. She enjoys her freakdom, she is an exhibitionist about it. Thats her right, but it aint art.

Save the Watts Towers, tear down the rotten Ivories

[Donald Frazell]

I think i will send this article to the Tosh.0 guy, that is one funny gay boy! And a helluva lot closer to truth than this Pharisee of academic"art", making sure nothing taints the status quo of mediocrity that sustains the "artscene'.
He will have a field day with Opie, perhaps giving her red hair and going fishing with pa.