P
AGE
03
Ricardo Valverde:
Experimental photographer,
family man
Jesus Figueroa
Writer
Ricardo Valverde took his passion
for photography and his love for his
family and combined then in ways that
brought a private life to public view.
The Vincent Price Art Museum
in Monterey Park, California has
“Ricardo Valverde: Experimental
Sights 1971-1996,” curated by guest
curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill. The
exhibit is open now and runs through
July 26.
“I’ve never been so inspired
by someone (Fajardo-Hill) with
whom I have had an opportunity to
collaborate with,” Director od the
VPAM Karen Rapp said. “She has so
much enthusiasm. She is so incredibly
devoted to art history,” She said.
The artwork in display goes through
some of the artist’s sculptures,
photographs and films.
Every work of art is different and
has aspects to it which had not been
explored during that time period.
Valverde pioneered an expirenmental
photography phase in the Latino art
movement and in the art movement in
Los Angeles, California.
“I personally don’t see Ricardo
(Valverde) as a mere photographer, I
think whatever medium he touched, he
simply was experimental and daring,”
Fajara-Hill said.
Some of the subjects in the
photographs are his family, many of
them are nude photographs.
Valverde used his family as his
subject matter to include his personal
life into his art.
“There was no devision, for me,
in his work between himself and the
subject he represented,” Fajara-Hill
said.
The exhibit fills the Large Gallery of
the VPAM with many experimentally
processed photographs, which include
writing on the negative, writing on the
photograph and different developing
methods which give different effects
to the resulting photograph.