Joseph Rodriguez
Carson, Los Angeles, CA1992

On view:

Geffen Galleries, Car Culture

Black and white photograph of a person standing beside a car door, holstered firearm visible at their hip, as a young passenger extends an arm out the open window

Artist or Maker: Joseph Rodriguez
United States, New York, Brooklyn, born 1951
Title: Carson, Los Angeles, CA
Date Made: 1992
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 15 1/4 × 23 1/16 in. (38.74 × 58.58 cm) Primary support: 19 7/8 × 23 15/16 in. (50.48 × 60.8 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Lynda and Robert M. Shapiro
Accession Number: M.2016.106.1
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: In the early nineties, New York photographer Joseph Rodríguez spent a couple of years living in Los Angeles, where he documented chiefly Latinx gang communities in the city’s east side. It was a personal project, not an assignment, and his perspective was that of a nonjudgmental observer. Rodríguez was strongly influenced by, and identified with, street culture, and he wanted to know more about what young people were saying about their situations in East Los Angeles. His decision to go to L.A. in 1992 coincided with the riots resulting from the acquittal of police officers charged with the beating of Rodney King. This photograph of a traffic stop in Carson is an arrangement of hand gestures. At the lower left corner of the frame, a white man’s right hand grasps a sidearm (probably a 9mm Beretta 92FS, standard issue for the sheriff’s department at the time); at upper right, the young Latinx driver’s hands, fingers spread, reach across the passenger seat and out the half-open window. The cause and outcome of the encounter are unclear.

Working independently, without an editor, Rodríguez recorded his experiences and impressions in journals. The year this photograph was made, he noted that “LA is like a postmodern Wild West. Everybody’s got a gun.” Years later, he compiled this series, which extended to 2017, in a publication, East Side Stories: Gang Life in East LA (2020).

Britt Salvesen

2025
Copyright: © Joseph Rodriguez

Joseph Rodriguez
Carson, Los Angeles, CA1992

On view:

Geffen Galleries, Car Culture

Artist or Maker: Joseph Rodriguez
United States, New York, Brooklyn, born 1951
Title: Carson, Los Angeles, CA
Date Made: 1992
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 15 1/4 × 23 1/16 in. (38.74 × 58.58 cm) Primary support: 19 7/8 × 23 15/16 in. (50.48 × 60.8 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Lynda and Robert M. Shapiro
Accession Number: M.2016.106.1
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: In the early nineties, New York photographer Joseph Rodríguez spent a couple of years living in Los Angeles, where he documented chiefly Latinx gang communities in the city’s east side. It was a personal project, not an assignment, and his perspective was that of a nonjudgmental observer. Rodríguez was strongly influenced by, and identified with, street culture, and he wanted to know more about what young people were saying about their situations in East Los Angeles. His decision to go to L.A. in 1992 coincided with the riots resulting from the acquittal of police officers charged with the beating of Rodney King. This photograph of a traffic stop in Carson is an arrangement of hand gestures. At the lower left corner of the frame, a white man’s right hand grasps a sidearm (probably a 9mm Beretta 92FS, standard issue for the sheriff’s department at the time); at upper right, the young Latinx driver’s hands, fingers spread, reach across the passenger seat and out the half-open window. The cause and outcome of the encounter are unclear.

Working independently, without an editor, Rodríguez recorded his experiences and impressions in journals. The year this photograph was made, he noted that “LA is like a postmodern Wild West. Everybody’s got a gun.” Years later, he compiled this series, which extended to 2017, in a publication, East Side Stories: Gang Life in East LA (2020).

Britt Salvesen

2025