In Memoriam: Laura Aguilar (1959-2018)

Laura Aguilar, In Sandy's Room, 1989, Gelatin silver print, 42 x 52 inches. Courtesy of the artist and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. © Laura Aguilar.

The CSRC mourns the passing of Los Angeles-based artist Laura Aguilar, a longtime friend and collaborator who died April 25. We are proud to have worked with her on her oral history, some of her last photo projects, a comprehensive DVD of her videos, and her first retrospective, organized in collaboration with the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) in 2017. That same year, her photograph "In Sandy's Room" was featured in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home--So Different, So Appealing. Aguilar was the cover artist for the Fall 1998 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies from CSRC Press, and she was the subject of several articles published there. We are comforted to know that over the past year she finally received the recognition she richly deserved. This month, the catalog for the VPAM exhibition won a gold medal in a preeminent international book award competition. This gives us hope she has secured her rightful place in art history. Laura was a great artist and our friend and we will miss her. 

Further reading:

Cover art by Laura Aguilar and essay by Amelia Jones, "Bodies and Subjects in the Technologized Self-Portrait: The Work of Laura Aguilar" (Aztlán, v. 23, n. 2, Fall 1998) (PDF)

Front matter, forewords by Chon A. Noriega and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, and introduction by Rebecca Epstein. (Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell exhibition catalog, edited by Rebecca Epstein, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press and Vincent Price Art Museum, 2017) (PDF)

Carolina A. Miranda, "Photographer Laura Aguilar, chronicler of the body and Chicano identity, dies at 58" (Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2018) (PDF)