[ambient music evoking a contemplative mood]
Female Narrator Created in 2004 and 2005, this series is Catherine Opie’s only work in Polaroid.
Catherine Opie I really wanted to reflect about what was happening politically within our country.
Female Narrator A great deal was happening at the time: the terror of 9/11 had permeated America, President George Bush was trying to get re-elected, and Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Opie recorded news programs, paused on certain images and photographed them. The result was this series called, “Close to Home.”
[music ends]
Catherine Opie I was trying to play metaphorically with the notion of manipulation of the media versus the non-manipulated material of Polaroid. The news is instantaneous, and it just floods through your life on a constant level. I was able to really think about the materiality of that on a photographic level, it landed with Polaroid for me at that moment in time.
Female Narrator Through juxtaposing multiple images, Opie builds relationships between stories: The Pope and Terry Schiavo; George Bush and Hurricane Katrina. [ambient music evoking a more somber, contemplative mood] By framing the images in a certain way, she comments on the veracity of the news.
Catherine Opie One of the ways of doing it was doing half of the newscaster face with whatever they flagged that day on the screen. So you know, again metaphorically talking about half-truths or what truth is, what is a photograph in relationship to our connection to truth?
[music ends]
