Hammer Conversation: Catherine Opie, Connie Butler, and Helen Molesworth

​In conjunction with her solo exhibitions at MOCA Pacific Design Center, Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road, and at the Hammer Museum, Catherine Opie: Portraits, Catherine Opie joins MOCA Chief Curator Helen Molesworth and Hammer Chief Curator Connie Butler for a conversation about the concepts of portraiture, gender, celebrity, and creativity at play in the artist’s photographs of Elizabeth Taylor’s Bel-Air home and in her images of visual artists, fashion designers, and writers drawn from her own circle of friends. They will explore the ways these recent bodies of work both extend and depart from Opie’s longstanding interests in documentary photography, community and identity, and the built and social American landscape, as well as the capacity of photography to bear witness to what might otherwise remain unseen.