The wonderful Vincent Price Art Museum on the campus of East Los Angeles College has as its Pacific Standard Time LA/LA exhibit, “Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell,” opening Sept 16, the first comprehensive retrospective of the challenging photographer’s works. A series of talks and community events accompanies the show.
This exhibition tells the story of the artist who for most of her life struggled to communicate with words yet ironically emerged as a powerful voice for numerous and diverse marginalized groups.
Using her nude body as an overt and courageous rebellion against the colonization of identities — racial, gendered, cultural and sexual, Aguilar’s practice evolved over time as she struggled to negotiate and navigate her ethnicity and sexuality, challenges with depression and auditory dyslexia, and the acceptance of her large body.
Laura Aguilar, (b.1959) was born and raised in Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley. She studied photography at East Los Angeles College and for more than thirty years she has shown her work extensively in more than fifty exhibitions, in La Biennale di Venezia, Aperto 93, the Smithsonian Institution’s International Gallery in Washington D.C., and the International Center of Photography in New York City.
Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell | Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College | opens Sept 16