Clothed/Unclothed #26

This diptych comes from Aguilar’s largest series, comprising 35 portraits of the artist’s close friends, taken between 1990 and 1994. Here, she features a young, interracial gay couple in two moments that reveal emotional layers of intimacy—public and private, clothed and unclothed, smiling and serious. Helmut Newton’s 1980s series Sie Kommen (Naked and Dressed) offers a precedent for this series, but whereas the fashion photographer’s showcases tall, skinny, white models, Aguilar celebrates bodily variation and diversity. Aguilar’s subjects are often her community or her own body. Aguilar was a central figure in Chicanx and queer art communities in Los Angeles beginning in the 1970s. She did not speak Spanish and much of her work addresses experiences of feeling silenced and in-between for those of Mexican heritage living in the U.S. Queerness and disability are also themes in Aguilar’s work.