NEW YORK (January 2025) – The Hispanic Society Museum & Library (HSM&L) is pleased to announce “Out of the Closets! Into the Streets!”, an exhibition showcasing 18 photographs of New York City’s early Pride Marches from 1975 and 1976. Captured on vivid Kodachrome film, these historic images represent some of the earliest photographic works by Francisco Alvarado-Juárez—an internationally acclaimed multimedia artist born in Honduras and based in New York City. The exhibition will run from May 8 to August 31, 2025, as the second installment of HSM&L’s annual series Arte en el Alto Manhattan, which highlights Upper Manhattan artists, and the museum’s first LGBTQ+ initiative. A selection of reproductions of Alvarado-Juárez’s photographs will also be displayed on the museum’s outdoor terrace through Spring 2026.

“Out of the Closets! Into the Streets!” transports visitors back to the origins of what is today celebrated as “Pride” but at the time was known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, also referred to as the “Gay Liberation Parade.” Born directly out of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, this event served as a rallying cry for increased LGBTQ+ visibility at a time when New York City still enforced discriminatory “sodomy” and “lewd behavior” laws that targeted the community.

The exhibition’s title is inspired by the powerful chant, “Out of the closets! Into the streets!”, which echoed throughout both the 1975 and 1976 marches. Alvarado-Juárez’s photographs capture moments of joy, protest, and kinship during the nascent years of the gay liberation movement. From celebratory performances to intimate portraits, his work transcends labels, offering a humanizing glimpse into the lives of marchers who identified as “homosexuals” and “transvestites” in the language of the time.

Using his Nikkormat FT camera, Alvarado-Juárez navigated the dynamic energy of the marches, manually adjusting focus and seeking meaningful compositions that highlight bonds of solidarity and resistance. The resulting images form a compelling visual archive while standing as significant works of art.

“The photos don’t seem fifty years old. To me, they are fresh in my memory,” says Francisco Alvarado-Juárez. “That’s because of the human element, and because the pursuit of life comes through very clearly, as if I were photographing friends. A celebration of life! A performance for me as the photographer and for all of those that show their beauty and humanity, inside and outside. New York, the art center of world. The Avenue of the Americas, full of color, dignity, and provocation. And me, searching for art, which, all these years later has become history.”

“Out of the Closets! Into the Streets!” also showcases the ethnic and racial diversity of the Christopher Street Liberation Day marches. Prominent Latine activists, including Sylvia Rivera—a founding member of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.)—played critical roles in the movement. Their influence extended to liberation groups such as the Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance, Radicalesbians, and the Latine-centered Third World Gay Revolution (T.W.G.R.), leaving a lasting impact across the Hispanic world. Today, major cities like São Paulo, Madrid, and Buenos Aires host Pride marches with millions of participants, a testament to the enduring legacy of these early pioneers.

Francisco Alvarado-Juárez’s illustrious career spans over 45 solo exhibitions and 80 group shows worldwide. His multidisciplinary work—including painting, installations, mixed media, and photography—is featured in renowned collections such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Spain’s Museo Pablo Serrano. Alvarado-Juárez has received over 25 prestigious awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pollock Krasner Foundation, and the Fulbright Program.

If interested in learning more about the HSM&L and its current exhibitions, please visit Hispanic Society Museum & Library and follow the institution on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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ABOUT THE HISPANIC SOCIETY MUSEUM & LIBRARY 

Founded in 1904 by the American scholar, philanthropist, and collector Archer M. Huntington, the Hispanic Society Museum & Library houses one of the world’s premier collections of art from Spain, Portugal, Latin America, and the Philippines. Located in a historic Beaux-Arts building on Audubon Terrace in the dynamic Washington Heights neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, the Hispanic Society is home to over half a million objects spanning thousands of years of art history across three continents. Unparalleled in scope and quality, the collection includes works by Baroque and early modern masters like El Greco, Diego Velázquez, Luisa Roldán, and Francisco de Goya; visionary 20th century artists like Joaquín Sorolla; and major figures from Viceregal Latin America such as Sebastián López de Arteaga and Juan Rodríguez Juárez, along with extensive collections of antiquities, ceramics, textiles, and decorative arts. The Hispanic Society’s library is one of the most important centers for research on Hispanic art and culture, containing an extraordinary array of rare books and manuscripts, including a map of the world dated to 1526 and a first edition of Don Quixote. The library is open to the public by appointment.

The Hispanic Society is committed to giving voice to Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking communities and cultures in New York, throughout the United States, and across the world. As an active member of the Washington Heights community, the Hispanic Society regularly hosts concerts, lectures, and tours, and invites contemporary artists and community members to dialogue with the collection. Through its ambitious special exhibitions, a world-class permanent collection, innovative educational programming, dedicated support of living artists, and advanced research initiatives, the Hispanic Society continues to reimagine the potential for a museum and its ability to lead meaningful change.

ABOUT FRANCISCO ALVARADO-JUAREZ

 Francisco Alvarado-Juárez, an internationally recognized New York artist born in Honduras, has had over 50 individual and 90 group exhibitions. His multidisciplinary work—including painting, installations, mixed media, and photography – is represented in various permanent museum collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Everson Museum of Art and Museo Pablo Serrano in Zaragoza, Spain.

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