“[They] mark the entrance and exits of various populations. They are not like mini-malls in the suburbs, which have chains like Starbucks and Jamba Juice. These are about the American dream for me. But they’re very fragile. They change almost overnight, and are often forgotten about, just like the freeways.”

Catherine Opie (b. 1961). Untitled #2 (Mini-malls), 1997. Inkjet print (Iris), 16 x 41 inches, edition of 5

Born out of Catherine Opie’s daily experience of Los Angeles, her first mini-mall photographs focused on those bordering Koreatown, the neighborhood where she was living at the time. Mini-malls, created between 1997 and 1998, signaled a turn toward a deeper documentary approach in Opie’s work. Assuming the role of wanderer in the urban landscape of Los Angeles, she sought to record the city’s social life in one of its most ordinary manifestations, taking the generic architecture of the mini-mall to reflect the ever-shifting relationships in her city’s neighborhoods. By formulating a visual history of these vital yet barely acknowledged spaces, Opie hoped to capture a larger aspect of American culture, a “utopian notion of difference that is integral to the American dream.”

Photographing at dawn on Saturdays and Sundays, Opie was able to avoid the commercial activity that normally characterizes such spaces. The signs that identify individual stores and restaurants come to stand in for the actual populations and communities inhabiting the neighborhood.

Opie had intended to print the Mini-malls in a small format similar to the one she had used for Freeways but soon realized that enlarging the images would highlight the signage that pervades them. Reading these signs, viewers come to understand what an incredible range of ethnic and cultural positions are represented in the mini-malls. A Mexican-American restaurant with faux terra-cotta roofing stands next to a pagoda-like East West Bank; restaurants offering Thai-Chinese cuisine, barbeque, and falafel abut an Armenian ophthalmologist’s office and a Latino “service center” dispensing advice on income tax, immigration, divorce, and translation. To Opie, “the mini-malls are the essence of place, the new town center that shows the multi-cultural aspect of the city. They are not about the Starbucks and Noah’s Bagels and all the other chains that are so prevalent. . . .They are the Mom and Pop shops of the American Dream. More importantly they signify what ethnic neighborhood you have just entered, or exited, as you wander through the streets of Los Angeles.” Though some would argue that these structures are eyesores characteristic of urban blight, Opie seems to present them as signs of hope and change to be embraced as an integral part of the community.

• Create a list of all of the things you observe in this photograph. Use a magnifying glass if it will help you to see the details more clearly. What have you learned about this place by looking at it carefully?
• Have you ever seen a place similar to this? Where? Does it remind you of any place you have seen or visited? Explain.
• Opie made several very deliberate choices in creating the Mini-malls series. She shot in black and white rather than color; fit the entire strip of shops into the frame, including the parking lot, sidewalk, and accompanying bus-stop benches; and excluded people from the photographs. How do these choices effect the impact of this image? How would making other choices produce alternative meanings? Explain.

• What do the commercial areas in your community look like? As a class assignment photograph the storefronts in your neighborhood. Print them and look at them together. What do they collectively tell you about your community?
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• Usually we document grand architecture, skyscrapers, bold and new designs, and historical landmarks, but Opie chooses to turn her camera on these humble—even ugly—mini-mall structures instead. What structures are important to your community? Explain your choices.
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• Make an appointment to interview a storeowner or merchant in your community. If available, like Opie, choose a business that is not part of a large chain, for example an independent drugstore rather than Walgreens, or a corner pizza place rather than McDonalds. Create a list of interview questions that will help you to find out more about the business and its owners.
  
  • How long have they operated the business?
  • Why did they choose this location?
  • What are the satisfactions of owning this business? What are the challenges?
  Add your own questions to this list. Share the information you learn with your classmates. Discuss what you discovered in the process.
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• Catherine Opie uses a custom-made camera specially designed to take her panoramic shots, but even a novice can experiment with this elongated format by combining several slightly overlapping photos and piecing the panoramic scene together. Choose a subject and experiment with this technique. Share the results with your classmates.
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