A lecture by the US artist Catherine Opie will take place in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie on Thursday, February 19, 2026 at 7:30 p.m. The lecture takes place on the occasion of Catherine Opie’s solo exhibition “The Pause That Dreams Against Erasure” in Kassel. It is organized by the Neue Nationalgalerie, the American Academy in Berlin and the Fridericianum.
Image above: © Catherine Opie, Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul; and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Heather Rasmussen
The questions of what defines a person, what influences shape them, how social attributions can be overcome and what alternative life plans are conceivable and liveable form a central starting point in Catherine Opie‘s work. Since the early 1990s, the artist has developed a complex, cross-media oeuvre that primarily includes photographs, but also films, art books and installations.
Born in Sandusky, Ohio in 1961 and now based in Los Angeles, Opie works in three basic photographic genres: landscape, portrait and documentary. These serve less as fixed categories than as starting points for the ongoing examination of questions of visibility and representation as well as the practice of photography as an act of witnessing. Her work combines documentary precision with artistic definition and poetic depth – from the early portrait photographs of her queer environment inspired by the painting tradition of the Renaissance to series that explore landscape as a resonance space for identity, hope and trauma, to the haunting documentation of social movements such as Black Lives Matter or protest marches in the context of Donald Trump’s presidency.
As a close observer of social life, Opie builds on the tradition of socially oriented documentary photography of the 20th century – influenced by photographic positions such as Lewis Hine, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange – and subjects it to a far-sighted, sensitive update.
On the occasion of her solo exhibition “The Pause That Dreams Against Erasure” in Kassel, the Neue Nationalgalerie, the American Academy in Berlin and the Fridericianum invite you to a joint event with the artist. In her lecture, Opie provides insights into her artistic practice, the development of her work and the social issues that drive her work to this day. There will be a Q&A afterwards and will provide space for exchange and discussion.
WHEN?
Thursday, 19. February 2026 at 7:30 pm
WHERE?
Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785 Berlin
