El Museo del Barrio is proud to present Sophie Rivera: Double Exposures, the first museum survey dedicated to the groundbreaking photographer Sophie Rivera (1938–2021). Opening April 23, 2026, the exhibition offers a long-overdue reevaluation of Rivera’s contributions to photography and Nuyorican visual culture, while celebrating her deep, historic connection to El Museo—where she organized exhibitions and held her first solo show in the 1980s.
The exhibition title, Double Exposures, references both the photographic technique of layering multiple images and Rivera’s exploration of multiplicity and identity. Her work reflects the complexity of her intersectional positionality as a female, feminist artist of Puerto Rican descent in New York during the 1970s–1990s, contesting and expanding traditional histories of portraiture and representation.
Featuring portraits, documentary images, experimental self-portraits, and photographs of New York’s subway and graffiti scenes of the late 1970s, Double Exposures brings together vintage prints and never-before-seen materials from Rivera’s archive.
An accompanying publication co-published by El Museo del Barrio and Aperture will mark the occasion, serving as the first comprehensive monograph on the artist. The book includes more than 125 images, selections from Rivera’s writings, and newly commissioned essays.
As Latine cultural production continues to shape the American experience, Sophie Rivera: Double Exposures marks an institutional milestone for El Museo del Barrio—revisiting essential moments in Nuyorican history and celebrating an artist whose vision powerfully underscores the central place of Puerto Rican and Latine voices in the story of American art.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sophie Rivera (1938–2021) was a pioneering photographer whose work emerged in the 1970s amid a generation of artists challenging the misrepresentation of Latines in American media, art, and culture. As one of the few women photographers associated with En Foco, the Bronx-based photography collective established in the context of the Nuyorican Movement, Rivera played a critical role in advancing the collective’s mission of self-representation. Her celebrated Latino Portrait series celebrates everyday Puerto Ricans and were later exhibited at large scale in the New York City subway system—bringing, in Rivera’s words, “portraits of people like themselves” to the public.
Deeply engaged with her community and committed to the politics of visibility, Rivera’s practice blended formal experimentation with social consciousness. Her work continues to resonate as a powerful reflection of identity, resilience, and belonging in the urban landscape.
SPONSORS
We extend special recognition to the Luce Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Ford Foundation for their generous support and for making this retrospective exhibition possible. We thank the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, and other public agencies for their steadfast commitment to our museum. We are also deeply grateful to Aperture for their partnership on this project.
