Reynaldo Rivera
Las Reinas de la Noche, 5
1995
Gelatin silver print
24.89 x 24.89 cm; 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 in (printsize)
Courtesy of the artist and Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Los Angeles and New York
Reynaldo Rivera (b. 1964) was born in Mexico and grew up traveling between Mexico and the US before settling in East Los Angeles. Similar to the work of Alvin Baltrop, Rivera’s photographs are often unstaged but portray intimate moments, existing somewhere between documentary records and diaristic accounts of active membership in the portrayed scene.
Rivera’s large (and largely unseen) body of photographic work captures the city’s queer clubs and house party scene in the 1980s and 1990s. These images depict a version of Los Angeles that has all but disappeared: Echo Park as a predominantly Latinx neighborhood rife with artists, writers, and performers full of flair and queer glamour.
Provenance
Reena Spaulings Fine Art
Jesse Doris, “The Glamorous World of LA’s Vanished Queer Underground,” Aperture, March 16, 2021