Photographs of Latinx Los Angeles

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents “Every Minute is History: Five Views of Los Angeles,” on view September 1, 2026, via January. 3, 2027. Featuring works by 5 photographers – Laura Aguilar, Reynaldo Rivera, George Rodriguez, Patssi Valdez, and Ricardo Valverde – this exhibition explores how these artists expanded the understanding of the constructed atmosphere and cultural panorama of Los Angeles, together with the representations of Latino/a communities within the metropolis throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

“Through their unique visions, these photographers have challenged conventional narratives and broadened the ways Latino/a lives are represented,” mentioned Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Their work documents histories that have often been overlooked, while also exploring deeply personal themes of identity, belonging, and creative expression.”

Emerging throughout and after the Chicano Liberation Movement of the Sixties, the artists within the exhibition display the breadth of photographic practices that celebrated Latino/a and Chicano/a identities by mixing documentary, conceptual, and experimental approaches to create enduring data of Los Angeles’s cultural and bodily landscapes.

George Rodriguez (American, born 1937) documented each superstar tradition and the collective political struggles of Mexican Americans throughout the Chicano Movement. His pictures seize pivotal moments in Los Angeles historical past, together with the Sunset Strip Riots, the United Farm Workers motion, and subsequent durations of social unrest, creating a robust visible file of civic activism and cultural change.

Ricardo Valverde (American, 1946–1998) used images to chronicle his household, pals, and the East Los Angeles neighborhood wherein he lived. While working for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, he photographed every day life all through town. In the ultimate decade of his profession, Valverde experimented with photographic supplies, revisiting older negatives and altering prints with pigment and incised marks to create richly textured and more and more summary photos.

Laura Aguilar (American, 1959–2018) turned famend for her compassionate portraits of queer communities and for her weak self-portraits. After finding out at East Los Angeles College, Aguilar created intimate pictures that explored id, visibility, and belonging, usually positioning her personal physique throughout the landscapes of the American Southwest.

Reynaldo Rivera (American, born 1964 in Mexico) documented the colourful underground music, nightlife, and drag efficiency scenes of Los Angeles throughout the Eighties and Nineties. His pictures seize areas the place standard boundaries of gender, class, and sexuality dissolved, preserving communities that flourished exterior mainstream visibility.

Patssi Valdez (American, born 1951), well known as a co-founder of the influential artist collective ASCO, turned her consideration within the mid-Eighties to extremely private studio-based images and documentations of performances. Her work usually centered on pals and collaborators, together with these concerned within the paper style exhibits organized by Self Help Graphics & Art, the neighborhood arts middle in East Los Angeles that started staging annual Day of the Dead festivities in 1982.

“This exhibition brings together a number of important artists working in Los Angeles during the second half of the twentieth century whose photographs have helped to shape and expand our understanding of this city and whose subject matter also often addressed Latino/a and Chicano/a culture, histories, and artistic aspirations,” says affiliate curator, Arpad Kovacs. “This exhibition is an opportunity for the Museum to celebrate recent acquisitions and reiterate our commitment to better understand and represent our local communities through our collection.”

“Every Minute Is History: Five Views of Los Angeles” is curated by Arpad Kovacs, affiliate curator within the Department of Photographs, and is introduced along with “Instante/revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography,” which explores the wealthy tapestry of cultural and creative dialogues which have formed Mexico’s photographic historical past.