Joseph Rodriguez | We're all people

Joseph Rodriguez

With his extensive and impressive oeuvre, Joseph Rodriguez enjoys international acclaim in the photography world. As a photographer, he often documents people who live at the bottom of society according to the norm. He hopes that his work can provide insight into the lives of these communities, and contributes to a better mutual understanding.

For the first European retrospective of Rodriguez, a selection has been made from five iconic series: TAXI, Spanish Harlem, Juvenile, East Side Stories, and LAPD. These projects show Rodriguez's development as a social documentary photographer. Guest curator of the exhibition 'We're all people' is the German gallery owner Bene Taschen from Cologne.

As a taxi driver from 1977 to 1987, Rodriguez captured the pulsating life of New York from his car. In his hometown, he also portrayed the Latin American residents of the Spanish Harlem district in the 1980s. The Juvenile series shows young offenders and those involved in the legal system. In East Los Angeles the photographer gave gang members a human face, and in the same city he followed police officers at work in 1994, just after the Rodney King riots.

The photographer and educator is friends with Jamel Shabazz, who exhibited at the museum in 2020. They share a special past and know the infamous Rikers Island prison in New York very well. From Maastricht, Joseph Rodriguez will participate in a photography project with detainees from the penitentiary in Sittard. This project was developed specifically by the museum and the penitentiary for the exhibition.    

Joseph Rodriguez (Brooklyn, New York, 1951) studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. He taught at universities in the United States, Mexico, and Europe. The photographer exhibits in museums and galleries, and at festivals. His award-winning work has been published in leading magazines such as Esquire, GQ, National Geographic, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Stern, and TIME. Photos are also included in the collections of the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. Rodriguez lives and works in New York.