The Joyful Marginalization

Imaginart gallery opens HUMBERTO RIVAS. The Joyful Marginalization , a small-format exhibition that brings together 15 portraits by the photographer, highlighting the marginal figures of Barcelona’s rogue scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Humberto Rivas, while portraying illustrious figures, also focused on those who lived in or brought life to what was then known as Chinatown, the Paral´el, and the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. The photographer captured the reality of the Catalan capital’s slums like few others, and his subjects are often prostitutes, homosexuals, drug addicts, transsexuals, showgirls, and drag queens. For all these reasons, the photographs gathered for this occasion feature graphic designer América Sánchez; prostitute Mónica del Raval; Johnson, one of the celebrated presenters at the Molino; and Violeta the Donkey, a drag queen icon during the Franco regime, to whom Humberto Rivas dedicated an extensive report and who perfectly symbolizes that marginalized Barcelona. In this sense, the title of the exhibition is taken from the article Fernando Trueba dedicated to Ventura Pons’ documentary, Ocaña, an Intermittent Portrait.