ExhibitionAugust 23, 2024
Reynaldo Rivera: “Fistful of Love / También la belleza” MoMA PS1
Mexican photographer Reynaldo Rivera (1964) presents Fistful of Love / También la belleza at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York, until September 9. Curated by Lauren Mackler and Kari Rittenbach.
Rivera was self-taught and began taking photos at the age of 16 in Los Angeles. He generally searched for spaces to explore the life of Latin American migrants where he portrayed lovers, fights, families, parties, among others. The show brings together a set of fifty photographs that open up the visual universe of the photographer, who today is known for his queer images during the eighties and nineties. The photographs on display are in black and white and were taken between 1981 and 2024. In addition, a recently made film is exhibited, which documents the life of the Mexican, his personal objects, his social environment and the imaginary of the collective that captures his work.
Fistful of Love / También la belleza includes part of the photographer's personal archive, as well as his most emblematic pieces, since it wants to show the artistic sensibility and a different perspective of the last two decades of the past century. Additionally, the singular gaze of the author was focused on a different cultural horizon, on independent musicians and artists, drags, trans and Latin immigrants.
The exhibition allows us to reflect on memory in photos such as: Sonic Youth, Anti-Club (1985), Cindy Gomez, Echo Park (1992), Angela, Paloma and Gaby, La Plaza (1993); images that highlight behaviors of resistance, spaces of freedom, different stereotypes and class privileges. Rivera documents different atmospheres and personal interactions without interrupting or intervening in the everyday contexts in which he finds “stars of a cross-cultural bohemia.”
Rivera was self-taught and began taking photos at the age of 16 in Los Angeles. He generally searched for spaces to explore the life of Latin American migrants where he portrayed lovers, fights, families, parties, among others. The show brings together a set of fifty photographs that open up the visual universe of the photographer, who today is known for his queer images during the eighties and nineties. The photographs on display are in black and white and were taken between 1981 and 2024. In addition, a recently made film is exhibited, which documents the life of the Mexican, his personal objects, his social environment and the imaginary of the collective that captures his work.
Fistful of Love / También la belleza includes part of the photographer's personal archive, as well as his most emblematic pieces, since it wants to show the artistic sensibility and a different perspective of the last two decades of the past century. Additionally, the singular gaze of the author was focused on a different cultural horizon, on independent musicians and artists, drags, trans and Latin immigrants.
The exhibition allows us to reflect on memory in photos such as: Sonic Youth, Anti-Club (1985), Cindy Gomez, Echo Park (1992), Angela, Paloma and Gaby, La Plaza (1993); images that highlight behaviors of resistance, spaces of freedom, different stereotypes and class privileges. Rivera documents different atmospheres and personal interactions without interrupting or intervening in the everyday contexts in which he finds “stars of a cross-cultural bohemia.”
Gallery
