The Getty Has Acquired 35 of the Late Artist Laura Aguilar’s Powerful Photos of Marginalized People and Her Own Body—See Highlights Here

Laura Aguilar, the late
photographer who turned her powerful, poignant lens on Latinx,
working-class, and queer communities, maintained an indelible
relationship to her home city of Los Angeles. Never was this
clearer than in “Show and
Tell,” the first
comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s poignant work, which
debuted to rave reviews during the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time:
LA/LA in 2017.

Now, a year after Aguilar’s
death at 59 due to complications from diabetes, the J.
Paul Getty Museum has ensured a group of the artist’s photographs will stay in
Southern California for good. Yesterday, the museum announced that it acquired 35
photographs by Aguilar. They span five series and 30 years of the
influential Chicana artist’s career.

“Laura Aguilar left us far too
soon, but her powerful work remains as a testament to her vision
and talent,” Timothy Potts, the Getty Museum’s director, said in a
statement. “It is important and appropriate that these photographs
will stay in Los Angeles, to which her practice had such a strong
connection.”

Among the works acquired by the
Getty are prints from Aguilar’s Latina Lesbian series (1986–90) of black-and-white portraits
of gay women, each of which features a handwritten note from the
sitter. Also represented are several prints from
Plush Pony
(1992), a body of work that found
the artist setting up her camera in a local lesbian bar to
photograph the working-class patrons. Both bodies of work are
emblematic of Aguilar’s skill in allowing people who are often
marginalized or flattened to present themselves on their own
terms. 

She also often put her own body
in the frame. For Nature
Self-Portrait (1996),
Aguilar photographed herself taking the form of a rock in the baron
desert. In her most
recognizable work, the triptych Three Eagles Flying (1990), Aguilar depicted herself wrapped in
both the American and Mexican flags, unable to see and caught
between the two—a visual depiction of the dual identities she held
as a Chicana woman. 

“The work of Laura Aguilar is
incredibly important and helps us better understand the role
photography has played in the diverse communities of Southern
California,” Jim Ganz, a senior curator in the Getty’s photo
department, said. 

A selection of Aguilar’s newly
acquired works will be included in the Getty’s upcoming
exhibition, “Unseen: 35
Years of Collecting Photographs,” which opens in December.
Meanwhile, “Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell,” the retrospective that
was first included in Pacific Standard Time, just finished a stint
the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago and will travel to
the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York next
year.

See more of Aguilar’s newly acquired work below.

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Aguilar’s Powerful Photos of Marginalized People and Her Own
Body—See Highlights Here appeared first on artnet
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