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| Laura Aguilar, In Sandy's Room, 1989 (negative) and 1990 (print). The Huntington, purchased with funds from the Estate of Nancy and George Parsons. (c) Laura Aguilar Trust of 2016 |
Laura Aguilar (1959–2018) got only modest museum attention during her short, subversive career. Since her death, Aguilar has become popular with curators on both coasts. The Huntington and the Getty have each added substantial holdings of Aguilar's work. The Huntington is debuting its collection in a one-room exhibition, "Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape," in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries for American Art.
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| Installation view, "Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape" |
Aguilar was big, Chicana, and queer. Her B&W self-portrait In Sandy's Room is big, nearly 50 inches wide. Aguilar was house-sitting at a friend's home in Pasadena, perusing a selection of vintage glamour magazines. Aguilar portrays herself nude and abundant, with a fan and a Diet Coke—a riposte to the Condé Nast vision of svelte, ice-queen beauty. In Sandy's Room recalls Diana Arbus' nudist colony pictures, but with the difference that the "other" is the artist and perhaps, the viewer.
After In Sandy's Room, nudity—nudes of sizes, shapes, and colors rarely seen in art—became part of the Aguilar brand. The Huntington selection feature nudes in the U.S. Western landscape, a subject dating at least back to Anne Brigman. Another inevitable comparison is Edward Weston. Aguilar's work builds on Weston's abstracted back studies with invisible head and limbs. Weston made conventionally beautiful bodies into something monstrous. Aguilar finds austere beauty in bodies and perspectives outside the media mainstream. The show includes a 1929 Weston Pepper that rhymes with some of Aguilar's visual explorations of her own body.
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| Edward Weston, Pepper, 1928. The Huntington, gift of Edward Weston and the Guggenheim Foundation |
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| Laura Aguilar, Grounded #103, 2006-2007 (negative) and 2018 (print). The Huntington, gift of the Laura Aguilar Trust of 2016 |
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| Laura Aguilar, Untitled from Grounded series, 2006-2007 (negative) and 2018 (print). The Huntington, gift of the Laura Aguilar Trust of 2016 |
The "Grounded" series, shot in Joshua Tree National Park in 2006–2007, trades in visual puns that veer into the metaphysical. In an untitled color print, the artist moons the camera, mimicking a geologic butt crack. In
#106, Aguilar's body merges with the landscape, like some kind of evolutionary camouflage.
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| Laura Aguilar, Grounded #106, 2006-2007 (negative) and 2018 (print). The Huntington, gift of the Laura Aguilar Trust of 2016 |
"Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape" runs through Sep. 7. 2026. It will be followed by a new selection of prints, "Laura Aguilar: Day of the Dead" (Sep. 20, 2026–Mar. 1, 2027).
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| Installation view, "Mercedes Dorame—Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation" |
Also newly on view in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries is "Mercedes Dorame—Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation," starting a three-year residency in the glass-enclosed Loggia (through Mar. 2029). An adjacent gallery displays "Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13" (through April 26, 2027).
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| "Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation" |
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| Installation view, "Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13" |
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