El Museo del Barrio Announces ‘Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art’

Teddy Sandoval, Angel Baby, 1995. 12-color silkscreen, 38 x 26 in. (96.5 x 66 cm). Estate of Teddy Sandoval and Paul Polubinskas. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber 

September 10, 2026 – January 10, 2027

El Museo del Barrio is proud to present Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, opening September 10, 2026, a major exhibition examining the life and work of Teddy Sandoval (1949–1995), an innovative yet historically underrecognized artist whose practice explored gender, sexuality, identity, and belonging with humor and political urgency. Rooted in Los Angeles’s queer and Chicane artistic communities, Sandoval’s work engaged the social and cultural movements shaping the United States and Latin America from the 1970s through the 1990s. 

“We are honored to be the only New York City venue for this important exhibition, which expands the art historical canon while celebrating the creativity and resilience of queer, Chicane, Latine, and Latin American artists. Presenting exhibitions like this reflects El Museo’s ongoing commitment to amplifying voices that have too often been overlooked and fostering dialogue across generations and communities.” —Patrick Charpenel, Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio. 

Curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz, the exhibition takes its title from Butch Gardens, a gay bar in Los Angeles frequented by Sandoval and fellow Chicane patrons in the early 1970s. Sandoval adopted the bar’s name for the fictional “Butch Gardens School of Art,” a conceptual framework through which he fostered collaboration, experimentation, and creative community while challenging traditional art world structures. 

“El Museo del Barrio is a fitting home for this exhibition as Teddy Sandoval’s work exists at the intersection of queer, Chicanx, and transnational artistic histories. Bringing the exhibition to one of the nation’s leading museums dedicated to Latinx art and culture expands the conversation Sandoval began decades ago and underscores his enduring relevance for contemporary audiences.” — C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz 

Expanding beyond a conventional retrospective, the exhibition places Sandoval’s work in dialogue with a multigenerational group of queer, Latine, and Latin American artists whose practices share related visual languages and political concerns. Spanning photography, painting, drawing, collage, conceptual art, and performance, the exhibition foregrounds interconnected histories of queer and diasporic artistic production across the Americas. 

For El Museo del Barrio’s presentation, additional loans and artworks from the museum’s collection expand on the themes of self-fashioning and gender presentation in the exhibition. These additional artworks also draw the east and west coasts into closer conversation with material that examines queer spaces and queer art in New York City during the period that Teddy Sandoval was working in Los Angeles.  

The exhibition features artworks from across Teddy Sandoval’s career, alongside those by 

Yolanda Andrade (b. 1950, Villahermosa, Mexico; works in Mexico City, Mexico) 

Félix Ángel (b. 1949, Medellin, Colombia; works in Washington, DC)  

Ever Astudillo (1948 – 2015, Cali, Colombia) 

Myrna Báez (1931, Santurce, Puerto Rico – 2018, San Juan, Puerto Rico) 

Felipe Baeza (b 1987, Celaya, Mexico; works in Brooklyn, NY)  

Álvaro Barrios (b. 1945, Categena, Colombia; works in Barranquilla, Colombia) 

Ginger Brooks Takahashi (b. 1977, Huntington, WV; works in Pittsburgh, PA)  

La Conquista (active in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, included Liliana Maresca, Adriana Miranda, 

Marcos López, and Res) 

Ester Hernández (b. 1944, Dinuba, CA; works in San Francisco, CA) 

Hudinilson Jr. (1957 – 2013, São Paolo, Brazil) 

Antonio Lopez (1943, Utuado, Puerto Rico – 1987, Los Angeles, CA) and Juan Ramos (1942, 

Caguas, Puerto Rico – 1995, New York, NY) 

Marisol (1930, Paris, France – 2016, New York, NY) 

María Martínez-Cañas (b. 1960, Havana, Cuba; works in Miami, FL)  

Agustín Martínez Castro (1950, Veracruz, Mexico – 1992, Acapulco, Mexico) 

Marta Minujín (b. 1943, Buenos Aires, Argentina; works in Buenos Aires and New York, NY) 

Troy Montes-Michie (b. 1985, El Paso, TX; works in Los Angeles, CA)  

Adolfo Patiño (1954 – 2005, Mexico City, Mexico) 

Claudio Perna (1938, Milan, Italy – 1997, Holguín, Cuba) 

Moises Salazar Tlatenchi (b. 1996, Chicago, IL; works in Chicago) 

Ana Segovia (b. 1991, Mexico City, Mexico; works in Mexico City)  

Joey Terrill (b. 1955, Los Angeles, CA; works in Los Angeles)  

Alex Vallauri (1949, Asmara, Ethiopia – 1987, São Paulo, Brazil) 

Martin Wong (1946, Portland, OR – 1999, San Francisco, CA) 

And the following artists who are new to El Museo del Barrio’s presentation of the exhibition: 

Joe Brainard (1942, Arkansas – 1994, New York, NY)  

Luis Carle (b. 1962, San Juan, Puerto Rico; works in New York, NY) 

Cielo Félix-Hernandez (b. 1988, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico; works in New York, NY) 

LTTR (founded in 2001 by Ginger Brooks Takahashi, K8 Hardy, and Every Ocean Hughes) 

Ana Mercedes Hoyos (1942 – 2014, Bogotá, Colombia)  

Alice O’Malley (b. 1962; works in New York, NY) 

Elle Pérez (b. 1989, The Bronx, NY; works in Brooklyn, NY) 

Patssi Valdez (b. 1951, Los Angeles, CA; works in Los Angeles) 

David Wojnarowicz (1954, Red Bank, NJ – 1992, New York, NY) 

Nahum Zenil (b. 1947, Chicontepec de Tejeda, Mexico; works in Tenango del Aire, Mexico) 

Carlos Zerpa (b. 1950, Valencia, Venezuela; works in Caracas, Venezuela) 

El Museo del Barrio is the only New York City venue to host the traveling retrospective, organized by Independent Curators International (ICI) and developed in partnership with Williams College Museum of Art and Vincent Price Art Museum. El Museo’s presentation is overseen by Lee Sessions, El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collections Associate Curator. 

“Bringing Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art to El Museo del Barrio provides an important opportunity to continue the conversations we’ve been fostering around queer Latine art, history, and community. Teddy Sandoval’s work—and that of the many artists featured in this exhibition—speaks powerfully to queer desire, pleasure, and self-expression, reminding us that these histories and voices are not only vital to our understanding of the past, but also deeply necessary today.” —Lee Sessions, Permanent Collections Associate Curator  

SPONSORS

Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art is a traveling exhibition curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz. It is produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, in collaboration with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College and the Williams College Museum of Art. Leadership support for the exhibition is provided by the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project initiative, the Terra Foundation for American Art, Mellon Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Research Fellowship program, the AltaMed Art Collection, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Generous funding is provided by Estrellita B. Brodsky, and the Pasadena Art Alliance. Crozier Fine Arts is the Preferred Art Logistics Partner. ICI’s exhibitions program is made possible with additional support from ICI’s Board of Trustees, The ICI Curatorial Fund for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the members of ICI’s International Forum. 

Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art and other programs at El Museo del Barrio are supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Aarts with support from the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.  

ABOUT EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO

El Museo del Barrio is the nation’s leading Latine and Latin American cultural institution. The Museum welcomes visitors of all backgrounds to discover the artistic landscape of these communities through its extensive Permanent Collection, varied exhibitions and publications, bilingual public programs, educational activities, festivals, and special events.  

The Museum is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street in New York City. The Museum is open Thursdays through Sundays from 11:00am – 5:00pm. Pay-what you can. To connect with El Museo via social media, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X. For more information, please visit www.elmuseo.org.