Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape

Drawn from recent acquisitions from Laura Aguilar’s estate, “Body and Landscape” traces Aguilar’s groundbreaking use of self-portraiture within the natural environments of Southern California and the Southwest, reframing the Western landscape as a site of personal power, resilience, and reclamation. ​Raised in the San Gabriel Valley, Aguilar created introspective works during the 1980s through the early 2000s. Her photographs reflect her Chicana, queer identity and the experiences of her friends in the LGBTQ and Latino communities. Through her self-portraiture, she engaged the landscape as a space for visibility and self-expression. ​

Anchored by In Sandy’s Room (1989), Aguilar’s first fully nude self-portrait and a pivotal image in her career, the exhibition includes significant works from her Nature Self-Portrait (1996), Stillness (1999), Motion (1999), Center (2000–2001), and Grounded (2006–2007) series. In Sandy’s Room was originally featured in The Huntington’s 2008 exhibition “This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in Los Angeles Photographs.”

A second rotation of Aguilar’s work, “Laura Aguilar: Day of the Dead,” will be on view Sept. 20, 2026–March 1, 2027, highlighting a lesser-known series from the early 1990s in which Aguilar documented Day of the Dead celebrations across Los Angeles, depicting artists, couples, and families active in the city’s Chicano art community.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website