Rodrigo Valenzuela was born in Chile in 1982 and lives and works in Los Angeles. Working across photography, sculpture, video, and installation, his practice engages Latin American sociopolitical history, labor movements, and the lived realities of undocumented and working-class communities. Informed by his background in art history and philosophy, Valenzuela approaches image making as a critical tool, blending documentary and fiction to examine how individuals and communities are represented within systems of power. Drawing from blue-collar aesthetics and autobiographical experience, his work offers a postcapitalist critique of social and civic institutions, using industrial materials and constructed gestures to reflect on labor, visibility, and the structures that shape collective identity.
Valenzuela’s work has been the subject of numerous solo and focused presentations at institutions and public sites including the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Print Center in Philadelphia, the Bric Center in Brooklyn, the Kimball Art Center, the University Art Museum at the University at Albany, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Frye Art Museum, and LA State Historic Park. His work has also been featured in major group exhibitions at institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Getty Museum, the Phillips Collection, the New Museum, LACMA, the Henry Art Gallery, and the USF Contemporary Art Museum.
Valenzuela is the recipient of significant honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. His work is held in prominent public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Getty Museum, LACMA, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
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