LAPD 1994 – Joseph Rodríguez

On View: Mar 26, 2021

Online Exhibition

In a year when millions of Americans poured into the streets demanding changes in police strategy, training and deployment, the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC) believes a crucial part of the conversation should be Joseph Rodríguez’s photo series and just-released book, LAPD 1994

This exhibition was curated by Cynthia Rivera and Mike Kamber.

Website designed by Cynthia Rivera.

Spanish translations by Maria de la Paz Galindo. 

This exhibition was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

The BDC’s online exhibition with images and text from Rodríguez’s book gives us an up close and personal look at the cops, victims, and violent perpetrators in working class communities of Pico Union, Rampart, and South Central Los Angeles.

Though the photos were taken more than 25 years ago, they serve as markers illuminating the path to our current society, one beset by debates about policing, violence and incarceration. As Rubén Martínez writes in its introduction, Rodríguez’s body of work visually encompasses, “another moment that tore open the soul of America.”