Exhibit Review: Guadalupe Rosales: Legends Never Die, A Collective Memory

Exhibit Review

The exhibit I went to was located at the Aperture Foundation located in NYC. The gallery itself, titled Guadalupe Rosales: Legends Never Die, A Collective Memory was somewhat small and shared space with the bookstore located to the left of the front desk. The photographs themselves were in glass containers in the middle of the room, while others were blown up and pasted onto the wall like wallpaper. The photographs in the glass containers were 4.233 x 3.483-inch polaroid photos, and they shared space with music pamphlets from the 1990’s in Los Angeles. The photographer/artist Guadalupe Rosales has been building the archive of photos and music pamphlets from Los Angeles since 2015, and her aim is to create counter narratives and aims to tell the stories of underrepresented communities as well as archive them. These photos and pamphlets are connected by their ties to Latinx culture, and are of her own taking, or from other people. The photographs and pamphlets themselves depict Latinx culture, and their subject matter consist of photographs of people within the Latinx community, or of music pamphlets promoting dance parties in which primarily people within the Latinx community attended. The exhibit itself was arranged so that on the wall at the back, and the wall to its right were some photos blown up. The name of the exhibit was places on the back wall, while photographs of young Latinx women were displayed with friends or by themselves proceeded. The photos and pamphlets in the glass containers in the center of the gallery consisted of more of the same, with multiple pamphlets promoting rave or dance clubs/events, and photos of Latinx women and men taking group photos or by themselves. The style of the exhibit was that of nostalgia/vintage in the sense that the photographs were taken in the past (1990’s) and aim to reframe Latinx culture that differs from a more mainstream idea of it. The internal context of the works tells a story of youth and their pastimes in the 1990’s, albeit through the rave/dance club pamphlets or the photos of them being together. The extremal context tells a similar story, however enriches it by involving multiple people in the project and having the project involve the Latinx LA community, furthering the impact of the exhibit. The exhibit was the only one displayed that day, so I was unable to compare it to other works, however just having that exhibit shown made it more impactful, as it felt like I wasn’t distracted to look at anyone else’s works, and I had a lot of time to envelope myself into the exhibit.

One of the works that stood out to me above the others was a photo titled Guadalupe Rosales’s cousin, Ever Sanchez (right), and unidentified woman, East Los Angeles, 1995. The photo depicts a man and a woman embracing each other in a romantic way in front of a kitchen. The photo corelates with Latinx youth as both people in the photo are of Latin ethnicity. The photo was a part of the blown-up photos painted on the wall, and hung right above candles, flowers, and a black bandana. The style is reminiscent of vintage or nostalgia, as the photo is of two people romantically involved, and feels like a memory the photography had.

Overall, I liked the show as it felt like I was stepping into a time vault. The people presented in the photos looked to be like any other youth in America, and even reminded me of people I know. I thought the subject was provocative and achieved its goal of creating a counternarrative that sheds light on what the Latinx people in LA were mostly about in the 1990’s. Because of how it was positioned, and the size of the gallery, I felt like I was in someone’s living room and was looking at old photographs of themselves or of their kids when they were younger. What was a little surprising was the prevalence of music pamphlets throughout the gallery. The love or importance of music in the Latinx culture in LA in the 1990’s was very big, and it was effectively shown in the gallery, like it was a part of the culture just as much as the people themselves. I would love to see this project grow more to involve more people both in LA and all around the country.