From picket lines to drag queen dressing rooms, these five views of Los Angeles prove that Chicano photography has always refused to stay in the same lane

Black and white photograph of farm workers leaning against parked cars, holding hand-lettered picket signs reading "Viva Cesar Chavez" and "Viva La Union". (landscape).

The job of a gallery curator is not just to bring together the best images, but to arrange them in a way that gives us new perspectives on them.

If Getty's new exhibition has a theme, I'd say it's that the history of Chicano/a photography in Los Angeles is not all grainy documentary shots of marches and protest signs. It's far more varied, intimate and unexpected than that.