Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History

by Elizabeth Ferrer

Overview

Shortlisted for the 2022 ASAP Book Prize, sponsored by the Association for the Study of Arts of the Present

Showcases the exceptionally diverse photographic work of Latinx artists

Whether at UFW picket lines in California’s Central Valley or capturing summertime street life in East Harlem Latinx photographers have documented fights for dignity and justice as well as the daily lives of ordinary people. Their powerful, innovative photographic art touches on family, identity, protest, borders, and other themes, including the experiences of immigration and marginalization common to many of their communities. Yet the work of these artists has largely been excluded from the documented history of photography in the United States.

Through individual profiles of more than eighty photographers from the early history of the photographic medium to the present, Elizabeth Ferrer introduces readers to Latinx portraitists, photojournalists, and documentarians and their legacies. She traces the rise of a Latinx consciousness in photography in the 1960s and '70s and the growth of identity-based approaches in the 1980s and '90s. Ferrer argues that in many cases a shared sense of struggle has motivated photographers to work purposefully, driven by a deep sense of resistance, social and political commitments, and cultural affirmation, and she highlights the significance of family photos to their approaches and outlooks. Works range from documentary and street photography to narrative series to conceptual projects. Latinx Photography in the United States is the first book to offer a parallel history of photography, one that no longer lies at the margins but rather plays a crucial role in imagining and creating a broader, more inclusive American visual history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295747637
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	01/14/2021
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	636,687
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth Ferrer, a writer, curator, and arts activist and administrator, is vice president of Contemporary Art at BRIC in Brooklyn.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xxiii

1 Roots and Antecedents, 1840-1960S 3

2 The Rise of a Latinx Consciousness in American Photography, 1960S-1980S 15

3 Documents, 1970s-Present 43

4 LA Chicanx 65

5 Staging Self, Narrating Culture 83

6 Family 105

7 The Archive 121

8 Geographies 133

9 Conceptual Statements 159

10 Puerto Rico, Connected and Apart 175

Afterword 195

Notes 201

Bibliography 219

Index of Latinx Photographers 241

General Index 245

What People are Saying About This

Arlene Dávilia

Makes perfectly clear that we cannot understand the visual history of the United States without centering the work of Latinx photographers. This essential resource should revolutionize how we teach art history.

Arlene Dávila

Makes perfectly clear that we cannot understand the visual history of the United States without centering the work of Latinx photographers. This essential resource should revolutionize how we teach art history.

Editorial Reviews

"[A] first of its kind encyclopaedic survey."

History of Photography

"Ferrer presents a concise history of the ways in which Latinx artists have been quintessential to the development of the medium."

Best Art Book of 2021 ARTnews

07/27/2020

Ferrer (Lola Alvarez Bravo), curator at Brooklyn’s BRIC art and media center, celebrates American Latinx photographers in the U.S. in this discerning and timely illustrated history. Introducing readers to more than 80 photographers and photojournalists who have helped document Latinx culture, Ferrer describes how “their work plays a crucial role in the process of documenting and informing, of constructing and imagining, a broader American history.” The book highlights mid-19th-century portraitist Epifania “Fanny” de Guadalupe Vallejo, who took daguerreotype photos of her family in California, as well as photojournalists at newspapers (among them, L.A.’s La Opinion and New York City’s El Diario La Prensa), who documented the rise of Latino consciousness and civil rights leaders in the 1960s. In 1970s New York City, Latin-American women and gay and lesbian photographers received attention for images of their communities, thanks in part to the collective En Foco (a 1970 photo by Roger Cabán shows a naked woman on a New York City subway platform, while one by René Gelpi captures a Puerto Rican gang member in 1971). By the 1980s, Los Angeles’s Chicano photographers were getting recognition for their work, as with Laura Aguilar’s Three Eagles Flying, a self-portrait in which she is bound and naked, flanked by the flags of the United States and Mexico. This revealing volume will appeal to scholars and anyone with an interest in Latinx art. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly