Reynaldo Rivera's "Propiedad Privada"

Kate Wolf and Eric Newman are joined by photographer Reynaldo Rivera, whose work is featured on the cover of the LARB's spring issue, which celebrates 15 years of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Rivera discusses his latest photobook, Propiedad Privada, edited by Lauren Mackler and Hedi El Kholti. Along with essays and stories by writers such as Constance Debre, Brontez Purnell, Colm Tóibín, and Justin Torres, it showcases images from Rivera's personal collection, most of which he never intended to show publicly. The photos are intimate and erotic, full of longing, vulnerability, and hope. They capture Rivera's friends, lovers, his longtime partner Bianco, and Rivera himself, in ephemeral moments of lust and physical connection. Utilizing the close spaces of bedrooms, bars and alleys as their setting, they document private performances, intense intimacy, and moments of charged reflection.

Together with Rivera's first book, Propiedad Privada offers a complex portrait of Latinx queer life in the U.S., while also taking its place in the timeless archive of desire.