These portraits of a group of people known as the Low Riders were made in northern New Mexico. These Hispanic young men and women are descendants of not only the ‘cruisers’ of the 50s but of every culture that has loved and adorned their mode of transportation. This includes Mexican bus drivers, Spanish conquistadores, and Roman gladiators. For these vehicles have been not only chariots of festiveness and show but also reliquaries of ancient psychic messages in which one tests the Fates.
These photographs were exhibited initially in conjunction with the cars on Santa Fe’s main plaza on the 19th of October, 1980, sponsored by New Mexico’s Museum of Fine Arts. For one day, cars and photographs intertwined with thousands of onlookers participating in the inspection and admiration of the vehicles. In 1990 The Smithsonian Institution bought “Daves Dream” for the Museum of Transportation in Washington D.C.
VIDEO FROM OPENING OF THE LOWRIDERS SHOW OCTOBER 19, 1980 ON THE SANTA FE PLAZA, NEW MEXICO