Reflections from a Getty Marrow Alum

It was the summer of 2015 when Joseph Valencia first stepped foot at the Getty Center to begin a curatorial internship in the Department of Photographs.

His main project: preparing for a forthcoming retrospective, Robert Mapplethorpe: Perfect Medium, curated by his supervisor Paul Martineau.

The ten-week position turned out to be one of the most impactful experiences in Valencia’s early days as a curator. “I left that summer with a strong sense of what being a curator is, at least at a large institution like the Getty Museum,” Valencia recounts. “I had the opportunity to see firsthand the complexity of the job and how all the pieces of a museum come together.”

The skills he developed a decade ago, such as writing proposals, condition reports, and contracts, have been transferable to his current role as curator of exhibitions at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM). There, he’s mined his background in Latin American and Latinx art of the Americas to expand the museum’s collection and organize exhibitions that explore Los Angeles youth culture, queer nightlife and activism, environmental justice, and the work of local contemporary artists.

In the years since his internship, Valencia has remained in touch with Martineau, cultivating a professional relationship that has grown beyond the mentee–mentor dynamic they started with. In the early development of the Getty exhibition Queer Lens: A History of Photography, on view earlier this year, Martineau consulted with Valencia on the exhibition checklist and the themes he was considering exploring. “That experience was moving because it meant I made a meaningful relationship with someone who has since become a colleague.”

Ten years after his Getty Marrow undergraduate internship, Valencia shares some of his career highlights and tips for students seeking arts internships today.

Community-driven curation

Building connections and encouraging people to learn from one another is important to Valencia’s curatorial practice. It’s one of the reasons he loves conducting deep research for each exhibition. “I’ve always seen exhibitions as an opportunity to situate an artist or a particular movement beyond their individual communities and into the broader culture to challenge narrow, harmful, existing narratives about those communities.”

An example is VPAM’s current exhibition Ofelia Esparza: A Retrospective, co-curated by Valencia with Chicana curator and scholar Sybil Venegas. Esparza is an altarista (a master altar maker), well-known for the community ofrendas (altars) she has created in collaboration with Self Help Graphics & Art every year since the 1970s. But audiences are less familiar with her drawings, paintings, prints, and political activism with the Chicano Movement and the United Farm Workers.

“Esparza is a cultural leader who’s really shaped the Day of the Dead in Los Angeles and in the United States,” says Valencia. “But the exhibition also sheds light on her more than seven-decade-long career as an artist. I’m so proud that people will be able to learn something new about her.”

Education beyond the classroom

For Valencia, education and curation go hand in hand. Earlier this year, to mark the conclusion of VPAM’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide exhibition We Place Life at the Center / Situamos la vida en el centro, he collaborated with artist Carolina Caycedo to put that ethos into practice.

Caycedo gathered a group of students, artists, environmentalists, and members of the public to use their bodies to spell out “Transición justa ahora” and “Just Transition Now” on USC’s McCarthy Quad. The performance, El Respiro/Respire, was one of many “geochoreographies” created by Caycedo to highlight the impact of collective action and the connection people have to the natural environment.

Valencia also included other artists and environmental movements advocating for alternative solutions to the global climate crisis throughout the exhibition. “We Place Life at the Center was not just an exhibition but an educational platform. I think a lot about how exhibitions can teach us about art or possibilities we might not have considered before. It all goes back to that phrase, ‘You have to see it to believe it.’”

A museum collection that matters

One of Valencia’s longer-term projects at VPAM has been researching the Chicanx and Latinx artists who have exhibited their work at the museum over the years. Among those artists is Alex Donis, whose depictions of queer love and sexuality received criticism and attempts at censorship in the late 90s and early 2000s. Donis recently donated some of his artwork to the museum, including limited edition screenprints created in collaboration with Self Help Graphics & Art.

“Donis’s generous gifts not only expand our collection of Latinx art but also resonate deeply with Los Angeles and the communities we serve,” says Valencia. “We are proud to be able to celebrate him and share his work at VPAM.”

During his research, Valencia noticed that despite the museum’s long legacy of showcasing artists like Donis, many of them are not represented in its collection. To mitigate this gap, he continues to acquire works by contemporary Chicanx and Latinx artists with support from Getty through the Advancing Latinx Art in Museums initiative devoted to expanding curatorial focus on Latinx Art. “Bringing these artists into our collection helps solidify their connection to our museum and our role in shaping and uplifting their practices,” Valencia said. “We’ll now have something by these artists that’s here for the public good, in perpetuity.”

Internships 101: network, network, network

When it comes to guiding students who might want to try a Getty Marrow internship, Valencia has heaps of good advice. After all, in addition to being an intern, he has also supervised Getty Marrow interns at VPAM for the past four summers.

He encourages students to start with an open mind and share their interests with their supervisor, who could potentially modify the internship to match their educational and professional goals. Valencia understands that integrating the Getty Marrow intern into his daily work is crucial for the latter to see the fruits of their labor and to build the skills and confidence they’ll need to alleviate the all-too-familiar anxiety they can feel when putting themselves out there to apply for internships or jobs.

Valencia also emphasizes networking and encourages interns to talk to professionals outside their own departments to get a feel for different career paths. “As a curator, I’m a connector. I’m always building relationships with artists, scholars, and museum professionals,” he says. “Interns are just as capable of making meaningful relationships with colleagues that can live beyond the summer.”

He adds that interns should also consider making meaningful connections with one another, whether it’s exchanging numbers to keep in touch outside the Getty Marrow program or simply grabbing lunch together. Valencia’s own cohort reunited last year. “It was incredibly special to see how everyone has grown in their respective careers. A lot of life has happened within the past ten years. Maintaining these connections is necessary because maybe one day you’ll be collaborating with those individuals.”