Works by Laura Aguilar, Mercedes Dorame, and Sandy Rodriguez explore the intersections of land, identity, and community
Posted on Tue., Dec. 9, 2025
Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. Photo by Linnea Stephan. | The Huntington, San Marino, California.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Reimagining the American landscape: Individual presentations of works by Laura Aguilar, Mercedes Dorame, and Sandy Rodriguez offer unique perspectives on the contemporary American landscape through their focus on layered histories and cultural identity. This phase of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art reinstallation builds on “Borderlands” (2021), which introduced a broader framework for presenting the museum’s American art collections.
Visibility and belonging: The artists center perspectives and histories often absent from conventional narratives, emphasizing cultural memory, resilience, and enduring connections to place.
Dialogue across mediums: Through photography, paintings, and engagement with historic materials, the artists inspire new understandings of the American West.
Beginning March 22, 2026, The Huntington will present a new exhibition and installations featuring work by Laura Aguilar (1959–2018), Mercedes Dorame (b. 1980), and Sandy Rodriguez (b. 1975). These individual presentations introduce recent acquisitions, site-specific projects, and ongoing research that reflect each artist’s engagement with California’s landscapes and communities. The works will be on view across multiple galleries as part of the reinstallation of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art.
“Together, these artists create a thoughtful dialogue about land as a place shaped by history and personal connection,” said Christina Nielsen, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum at The Huntington. “Their work adds important context to our reinstallation of the Scott Galleries of American Art, with each artist offering a distinct perspective on California’s landscapes and the many histories they hold.”
The exhibition “Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape” and the installations “Mercedes Dorame—Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation” and “Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13” complement The Huntington’s THIS LAND IS … initiative, a multidisciplinary exploration of land, United States history, and American identities.
“Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape” | March 22, 2026–Sept. 7, 2026
Drawn from recent acquisitions by gift and purchase 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.
Anchored by In Sandy’s Room (1989), Aguilar’s first fully nude self-portrait and a pivotal moment in her career, the exhibition includes significant works from her Stillness (1999),
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“Laura Aguilar’s work invites viewers to reconsider the possibilities of landscape photography while illuminating her vital contributions to the artistic life of Los Angeles,” said Linde B. Lehtinen, the Philip D. Nathanson Senior Curator of Photography at The Huntington.
In Sandy’s Room was featured in The Huntington’s 2008 exhibition “This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in Los Angeles Photographs.” “The return of Aguilar’s In Sandy’s Room to The Huntington as a permanent part of the collection is both fitting and deeply meaningful,” said Dennis Carr, the Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art at The Huntington.
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.
A second rotation of Aguilar’s work, “Laura Aguilar: Day of the Dead,” will be on view Sept. 20, 2026–March 1, 2027. The exhibition highlights 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. A specially designed ofrenda, or altar, honoring Aguilar’s deep roots and spiritual connections to the San Gabriel Valley will be integrated into the gallery as both memorial and testament to her life on this land.
“Mercedes Dorame—Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation” | March 22, 2026–March 2029
Tongva artist Mercedes Dorame’s large-scale installation draws on archival photography—including historical images of regional freshwater springs—together with sculptural and painted elements. The installation reflects her ongoing interest in place, memory, and the presence of ancestral histories.
“With ‘Deliquescence,’ Dorame invites viewers to see Los Angeles as a living landscape,” said Carr. “By combining her contemporary photographs with extensive research into The Huntington’s collections, she draws our attention to springs as sites of culture and deep memory.”
The installation’s title refers to a process in which a substance absorbs atmospheric moisture until it dissolves, forming a new solution. “I am interested in the power water holds to transform and be transformed, to dissolve or melt away. I am interested in the parallel timelines between the unearthed water that remains below the ground and the early images of Southern California stored in The Huntington’s archives,” Dorame said.
Based in Los Angeles, Dorame is known for installations and photographs that invite viewers to consider the past, present, and future of Tongva land. Many of the sites she selects for her installations have personal and family connections. Her work reimagines Los Angeles by bringing the Tongva people and culture to light.
“Deliquescence” marks Dorame’s return to The Huntington, where she served as the 2023–24 artist-in-residence.
“Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13” | March 22, 2026–April 26, 2027
Sandy Rodriguez’s “Book 13,” her largest installation to date, includes a 20-foot-wide map of the United States, plant portraits, a book, and a landscape painting, all created on hand-processed amate-fiber paper. Drawing on a range of colonial Mexican sources in dialogue with 19th-century maps and boundary surveys from The Huntington’s collections, the installation brings together research on place, ecology, and regional histories.
“With ‘Book 13,’ I consider how histories and borders are marked, erased, and redrawn across this land. I want visitors to feel the presence of communities who shape this region—the lived stories that unsettle official accounts, affirm resilience, and bring layered truths to the surface,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez is a Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow (2020–21) and the Hannah and Russel Kully Distinguished Fellow in the History of American Art (2025–26). Her ongoing series “Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón” comprises maps and paintings that explore the intersections of history, social memory, contemporary politics, and cultural production.
“Rodriguez’s work sparks curiosity about how history is written and how national narratives are constructed and presented,” Carr said. “She offers new ways of engaging our important historical collections and our landscapes at The Huntington.”
Public Programs and Community Engagement
A selection of public programs will accompany the exhibition and installations, including:
March 11, 2026: A lecture by Sandy Rodriguez as the Hannah and Russel Kully Distinguished Fellow
March 25, 2026: A Huntington U seminar focused on the photography of Laura Aguilar
April 15–16, 2026: An educator program featuring work by Sandy Rodriguez
May 3, 2026: A program presented with the American LGBTQ+ Museum highlighting Aguilar’s work
Generous support for “Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape” and “Laura Aguilar: Day of the Dead” is provided by the Hannah and Russel Kully Fund for American Art and the Robert F. Erburu Exhibition Endowment. Support for “Mercedes Dorame—Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation” is provided by the Hannah and Russel Kully Fund for American Art. Support for “Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13” is provided by Dorian Huntington Davis and the Hannah and Russel Kully Fund for American Art.
