Libby and I saw the ethnographic show “Latino Philadelphia” at Taller Puertorriqueno last week, and apart from the fact that it jams too much information into too small a gallery space, it’s a good-hearted effort that attempts to document the various waves of Latino immigrants to the city, through oral history and photographs.
Organized by the Balch Institute and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which doesn’t have an exhibition space, the show will tour around the region and wind up in an archive at the HSP.
I liked best the fact that Tony Rocco was the photographer hired to document the face of contemporary Latino Philadelphia. Rocco, who normally uses black and white film, switched to digital for this project. He still managed to be true to his aesthetic, catching people at ease and with dignity. (images are a couple of Rocco’s mostly anonymous subjects — he told me he was too busy shooting film to get the names)
