Sophie Rivera: Double Exposures

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 woman, 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.