Page 189 - The 60.Venice Biennial & MoMA issue of WOA Contemporary Art magazine

REYNALDO RIVERA:

REYNALDO RIVERA WAS BORN IN MEXICALI, THOUGH
HE ENDED UP MOVING TO MANY PLACES IN THE
UNITED STATES AND MEXICO GROWING UP. HE NOW
RESIDES PERMANENTLY IN EAST LOS ANGELES,
THE SITE OF THE QUEER HISTORY HE DOCUMENTS
THROUGH HIS PHOTOS.

The first solo museum exhibition of artist Reynaldo
Rivera (b. 1964, Mexicali, Mexico) includes recent and
iconic works, as well as never-before-seen photographs
from his archive. Spanning the 1980s through today,
the presentation features over forty black-and-white Reynaldo Rivera. Bianco, Echo Park. 1992. Courtesy the artist and Reena
and select color photographs, alongside a newly edited Spaulings Fine Art.
film, that reveal their subjects as they desire to be seen,
against stereotype: as stars in a film of their own making.
His work draws on the drama and deep emotion
Raised between California and Mexico, Rivera eventually
of boleros and rancheras, the glamour of both Old
settled in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles
Hollywood and the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, and
and into the artistic and activist milieu around post-punk.
predecessors like Brassaï and Cartier-Bresson. Rivera’s
A self-taught photographer, Rivera’s first subjects were
sensual portraits - whether staged or captured behind
those closest to him, including his sisters, who remained
the scenes - depict an everyday intercultural bohemia.
muses for decades.
Canonizing lovers, sisters, and idols both famous (Alice
Bag, Annie Lennox, Daniel Martinez) and lesser known
Reynaldo Rivera. Pamela and Pablo, Echo Park. 1994. Courtesy the artist and
Reena Spaulings Fine Art (Cindy Gomez, Miss Alex, Ceri Zamora), Rivera’s lens
skillfully harnesses available light to expose even the
darkest corridors.
Reynaldo Rivera lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent
solo exhibitions have been organized by Reena Spaulings
Fine Art, Los Angeles and New York (2023, 2021). He
has participated in group exhibitions at The Museum
of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2023), the Michael
C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta (2023),
and the Princeton University Art Museum (2022). His
work featured in Made in L.A.: a version at the Hammer
Museum and the Huntington Library, Los Angeles (2020).
His first monograph, Provisional Notes for a Disappeared
City, was published by Semiotext(e) in 2020. Rivera’s
photographs are in the permanent collections of MOCA,
Los Angeles; the Getty, Los Angeles; The Hammer
Museum, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art,
New York. The exhibition is organized by Lauren Mackler,
guest curator, and Kari Rittenbach, Assistant Curator,
MoMA PS1.

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