Photography / Fotografía: LA and México at Getty
Photographers reframe Los Angeles in “Every Minute is History: Five Views of Los Angeles”
Lotería de Muertos (detail), 1983; printed 1993, Ricardo Valverde. Hand-colored gelatin silver print. Getty Museum. © Esperanza Valverde and Christopher Jude Valverde
Body Content
The J. Paul Getty Museum presents “Every Minute is History: Five Views of Los Angeles,” on view Sept. 1, 2026, through Jan. 3, 2027.
Featuring works by five photographers—Laura Aguilar, Reynaldo Rivera, George Rodriguez, Patssi Valdez, and Ricardo Valverde—this exhibition explores how these artists expanded the understanding of the built environment and cultural landscape of Los Angeles, along with the representations of Latino/a communities in the city during the second half of the 20th century.
“Through their unique visions, these photographers have challenged conventional narratives and broadened the ways Latino/a lives are represented,” said 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 during and after the Chicano Liberation Movement of the 1960s, the artists in the exhibition demonstrate the breadth of photographic practices that celebrated Latino/a and Chicano/a identities by blending documentary, conceptual, and experimental approaches to create enduring records of Los Angeles's cultural and physical landscapes.
George Rodriguez
George Rodriguez (American, born 1937) documented both celebrity culture and the collective political struggles of Mexican Americans during the Chicano Movement. His photographs capture pivotal moments in Los Angeles history, including the Sunset Strip Riots, the United Farm Workers movement, and subsequent periods of social unrest, creating a powerful visual record of civic activism and cultural change. Ricardo Valverde (American, 1946–1998) used photography to chronicle his family, friends, and the East Los Angeles community in which he lived. While working for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, he photographed daily life throughout the city. In the final decade of his career, Valverde experimented with photographic materials, revisiting older negatives and altering prints with pigment and incised marks to create richly textured and increasingly abstract images.
Laura Aguilar
Laura Aguilar (American, 1959–2018) became renowned for her compassionate portraits of queer communities and for her vulnerable self-portraits. After studying at East Los Angeles College, Aguilar created intimate photographs that explored identity, visibility, and belonging, often positioning her own body within the landscapes of the American Southwest.
Reynaldo Rivera
Reynaldo Rivera (American, born 1964 in Mexico) documented the vibrant underground music, nightlife, and drag performance scenes of Los Angeles during the 1980s and 1990s. His photographs capture spaces where conventional boundaries of gender, class, and sexuality dissolved, preserving communities that flourished outside mainstream visibility.
Patssi Valdez
Patssi Valdez (American, born 1951), widely recognized as a co-founder of the influential artist collective ASCO, turned her attention in the mid-1980s to highly personal studio-based photography and documentations of performances. Her work often centered on friends and collaborators, including those involved in the paper fashion shows organized by Self Help Graphics & Art, the community arts center in East Los Angeles that began 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 20th 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 associate 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, associate curator in the Department of Photographs, and is presented in conjunction with “Instante/revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography,” which explores the rich tapestry of cultural and artistic dialogues that have shaped Mexico’s photographic history.