Skvid

Selected photos from the Being and Having series

1991

Catherine Opie

In Los Angeles in the late 80s, there wasn’t really a “butch culture”. So, my friends and I would don fake moustaches, ride our motorcycles, and sit outside the city’s only seven-day-a-week lesbian bar, The Palms, in chaps. We’d ask women if they’d like to be driven home by us, but of course they refused. Being and Having (1991) was the first time I ever entered the studio. I wanted to get away from the documentary model that I had held onto during my studies, so I used the yellow background as a way to address ideas surrounding performance and gender. We were so used to women in photos staring out vacantly. Even then, it was very unusual to encounter this kind of “masculine” approach in which women stare back towards the camera and take ownership.

Escape from New York - 1981