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Catherine Opie
Untitled (Windows), 2023pigment print
pigment print
101.6 x 67.6 cm.
40 x 26 1/2 in.
40 x 26 1/2 in.
Made during Opie American Academy at Rome residency, the Windows are part of a wider body of work Walls, Windows, and Blood, first exhibited at Thomas Dane Gallery Naples. ‘The idea of City’ was the theme of the Residency invitation and Opie conceived her research on the form, history and architecture of the Vatican City. Fascinated by the idea of this city within a city, with its own rule of law, Opie sought to explore the politics of this place, taking an unflinching look at the architecture of power and how we might make sense of Catholicism, its structures, reach and impact in an age when the ideologies and legacies of Colonialism are being questioned. With the Windows, Opie photographed every window that looked out from the Vatican Museum, with views out to the Vatican or to Rome. They are poetic and quiet, playing with shadows, light and architectural details, and the interiority and exteriority of space – an idea recurrent in Opie’s workOthers are concealed and covered with blinds, posing questions about transparency and opacity.