Laura Aguilar, Plush Pony #4, 1992. Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Laura Aguilar’s Plush Pony (1992) series was named after a Chicana lesbian bar located at 5261 Alhambra Ave. in El Sereno. It featured working-class lesbians posed in front of a cloth background that Aguilar set up inside the bar. These intimate group and individual portraits paint a picture of a marginalized queer culture not often seen within mainstream LGBTQ+ visibility campaigns.

In other ways, this series is also a tribute to the underground social spaces that allowed for intersectional community building, and unapologetic queer expression.