Catherine Opie marks the opening of the new LACMA building with seven portraits
From left to right: Cynthia Kok, assistant curator, Decorative Arts & Design; Clarissa Esguerra, curator, Costume & Textiles; David Bardeen, assistant curator, European Painting & Sculpture; Dhyandra Lawson, associate curator, Contemporary Art; Alex Kaczenski, assistant curator, European Painting & Sculpture
This story is part of Image’s April’s Thresholds issue, a tour of L.A. architecture as it’s actually experienced.
Ahead of the opening of the new David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, curators gathered for the artist Catherine Opie, who offered to take their portraits. “I wanted to honor the teams of curators who form the cornerstone of any institution’s vision through the exhibitions they bring to the public,” says Opie. The photographs were inspired by Irving Penn‘s famous “corner portraits,” for which subjects like Marcel Duchamp, Duke Ellington and Georgia O’Keeffe stood or sat between two walls, the narrow space holding and sharpening them into focus. Opie captured the teams between the walls of a deep blue-glazed interior gallery designed by Peter Zumthor. Like the corner of a building, the curators of a museum help hold it up and frame our experience of it.
From left to right: Rita Gonzalez, curator and department head, Contemporary Art; Claire Spadafora Baes, assistant curator, Prints & Drawings; Eve Schillo, associate curator, Photography; Aurora van Zoelen Cortes, curatorial assistant, Contemporary Art; Stephanie Barron, senior curator and department head, Modern Art; Marisela Ramirez, former curatorial administrator, Costume & Textiles
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From left to right: Rebecca Morse, curator, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department; Julia Burtenshaw, associate curator and department manager, Art of the Ancient Americas; Hope Flores, curatorial assistant, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department; Sharon Takeda, senior curator and department head, Costume & Textiles, and Japanese Art; Jackeline Lopez, curatorial assistant, Art of the Ancient Americas; Diana Magaloni, senior deputy director for conservation, curatorial, and exhibitions, and curator, Art of the Ancient Americas
From left to right: Erin Maynes, associate curator, Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies; Melissa Pope, former curatorial administrator, European Painting & Sculpture, and American Art; Leah Lehmbeck, curator and department head, European Painting & Sculpture, and American Art; Linda Komaroff, curator and department head, Art of the Middle East; Shadi Shafiei, research assistant, Art of the Middle East
From left to right: Rachel Kaplan, associate curator, Latin American Art; Britt Salvesen, curator and department head, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, and Prints & Drawings; Bobbye Tigerman, curator, Decorative Arts; Sandra Williams, assistant curator, Art of the Middle East
From left to right: Susanna Ferrell, associate curator, Chinese and Korean Art; Stephen Markel, senior research curator, South & Southeast Asian Art; Virginia Moon, former associate curator, Korean Art; Nancy Fox, senior curatorial administrator, South & Southeast Asian Art; Stephen Little, curator and department head, Chinese, Korean, and South & Southeast Asian
Standing from left to right: Nancy Thomas, senior deputy director for art administration & collections; Debra McManus, art administration manager; Megan Knox, senior curatorial administrator, Latin American Art; Marlon E. Franco, former senior curatorial administrator, Modern Art; Ilona Katzew, curator and department head, Latin American Art; Seated from left to right: Rika Hiro, associate curator, Japanese Art; Alyce de Carteret, assistant curator, Art of the Ancient Americas
Catherine Opie (b. 1961) is one of the most important photographers of her generation whose work is held in over 50 major collections throughout the world and is a recipient numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and The United States Artists Award.
