Dugan Aguilar: Photographs
Born of the Bear Dance:
Dugan Aguilar’s Photographs of Native California
Bear Dance Ceremony
Oakland Museum
Great Hall
Ongoing – June 22
I am a creature of my environment, as are we all. Like you, I strive to reach beyond the WEMS – White, European, Male and Straight – dominance that infuses our culture. Fortunately, we live in a hemisphere where proximity offers us the potential to access something more. Unfortunately, aside from a few images of baskets/beadwork and rock art that many of us can conjure up in our mind’s eye, such once autochthonous knowledge and creativity is not typically available or respected.
Things are changing. We are demanding more than WEMS when it comes to art. The Oakland Museum (“OCMA”) has been at the forefront when it comes to featuring non-WEMS art from diverse artists. In 2022, it received an extraordinary gift – Dugan Aguilar’s extensive photographic archive. Now, after careful sorting and organizing, OMCA stands ready to provide us with some extraordinary non-WEMS access, and it’s only 15 minutes away.
Dugan Aguilar
Experience the diverse voices of California’s Indigenous peoples as they shape the present and future through the lens of celebrated Native photographer, Dugan Aguilar. Aguilar’s works have been widely exhibited in California museums, as well as viewings at national and international institutions. Nonetheless, there are a great many fresh works to experience in OMCA’s latest exhibition, “Born of the Bear Dance: Dugan Aguilar’s Photographs of Native California.” Now in possession of Aguilar’s entire oeuvre of more than 25,000 negatives, prints and transparencies, Drew Johnson, OMCA’s curator of photography and visual culture stated, “The Aguilar archive is the most important photographic acquisition by the Museum in many years. This project is integrally tied to our work to engage California communities in the interpretation and presentation of their stories.”
In "Born of the Bear Dance," OMCA offers visitors their first opportunity to view an expansive presentation the final 37 years of Aguilar’s photographic raison d'être – to record Indigenous endurance and explore the vivid tapestry of contemporary Indigenous California life. His images embody the depth of their subjects' beauty, strength and humor. Yet, they defy the romanticized and melodramatic images by which Native people are often depicted.
Cousin Fred
His portraits of people, places, and ceremonies combine the intimacy of family photos with the technical skill of a masterful artist. Aguilar's work documents – and is a factor in – the perseverance and renewal of Native California's living, vibrant cultures.
This exhibition focuses on his works from 1982 to 2018, and illustrates how Aguilar defies colonial narratives and captures instead an unwavering Indigenous presence and dynamic cultural practices. He is among the first Native photographers to document Native life in Yosemite and California, from basketmakers and dancers to military veterans and motorcyclists. From his breathtaking California landscapes to Native gatherings and ceremonies, his powerful images document a rich array of Indigenous experiences. His depictions provide an intimate look at the lives of current day California Natives. Aguilar photographed California Native communities with intention and authenticity.
Chaw'se, Tuolumne Roundhouse
Note the Entrance at far left edge of the photo
Mayo Marrufo (Pomo) Tower Bridge Mimi Mullen (Maidu) Grand Marshall
Marrufo & Sacramento buildings. Mullen in the 1997 Greenville Gold Digger Days Parade.
Elsie Allen (Pomo)
This installation honors and showcases moments of profound cultural significance and weaves together the stories of resilience and unyielding vitality that define contemporary Native life. Just like his subjects, his photographs radiate a sense of quiet but determined celebration and resistance. The exhibition brings these images to life through video, audio, and narratives from Indigenous artists, activists, elders, and community members. “Dugan’s photographs demonstrate a living presence of spirit held within the embrace of beliefs, culture, language and ceremony by California Indian people – an embrace that comes from the heart of love and defiance.” – Theresa Harlan, She Sang Me a Good Luck Song.
DUGAN AGUILAR – Man Behind the Lens
Robert Dugan Aguilar (Mountain Maidu/Pit River/Walker River Paiute) was a Native American photographer who also has some Irish ancestry and preferred the name “Dugan” because it means "of dark complexion" in Gaelic.
His life story started out as typical for a Native American born post-WWII. He parents were forced to attend US government boarding schools, and he was Vietnam veteran. “One of the first jobs he had in Vietnam was loading body bags,” said his cousin, artist Judith Lowry. As a Marine in 1968, Aguilar was stationed in Vietnam for 20 months as a forward observer, scanning for enemy targets ahead of his unit. His tour in Vietnam was among the most painfully formative experiences of his life. Thereafter, he suffered from complications from both PTSD and Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide the US sprayed throughout Vietnam.
As a result of this personal history, Aguilar carried both the generational traumas of genocide and cultural loss, as well as the personal injuries of war. To heal, eventually Aguilar began to use the art of photography as his medicine.
Upon his return from Vietnam, he earned a BS in Industrial Technology & Design at Cal State – Fresno, in 1973. That same year, Aguilar saw Ansel Adams’ photographs at the Legion of Honor. Five years later, he took a workshop with Adams and began using Adams’ technique of previsualization in his photographic works. Primarily, he chose to concentrate on documenting the lives of Native Americans, although, like his mentor, he also devoted considerable efforts to landscape photography.
At first, Aguilar dreamed of photographing all the Native tribes in the US. He quickly realized that photographing the Native peoples of California would take a lifetime. California encompasses the traditional homelands of more than 100 different tribes. Yet, its rich Indigenous cultural diversity has seldom been recognized. Seeing this disparity, Aguilar devoted his artistic life to honoring the tribes’ varied experiences. According to his son Dustin, Aguilar “didn’t focus on the trauma side of Native world and culture. He didn’t want to show [Native peoples] as victims or heroes. Just what it is.”
Jennifer Bates, Oakland Big Time; Adam Enos; Sarah Keller
NATIVE VETERANS
Documenting the lives of Native veterans would become a further, specialized interest for Aguilar. His photographs of his fellow Native veterans express camaraderie and mutual respect, but they also allow conversation about and healing from experiences many might prefer to forget. Theresa Harlan (Kewa/Jemez/Laguna Pueblos), who originally met Aguilar through the American Indian Contemporary Arts gallery in San Francisco, said “There’s a need [for veterans] to recognize each other. . . . When you look at his veterans series, it’s really to recognize those who may not always feel comfortable being recognized.”
Rea Cichocki; Leonard Lowry; Warren Gorbet
(Maidu/Hupa/Yurok/Wintu); (Maidu/Pit River); (Maidu)
Leonard Lowry, one of the most decorated Native American war heroes of the U.S. military, was Aguilar's uncle. Lowry joined the United States Army in 1940, served in Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan during and after World War II. Lowry won the Distinguished Service Cross in Korea in 1950, and retired after 27 years as a Lieutenant Colonel.
In a contemporary variation on ceremony, the gatherings – and Aguilar’s documentation of them – helped restore veterans to their communities. “Sometimes the only way you can talk about it is when you have representation,” said Aguilar’s cousin, Chag Lowry, “Dugan was healing himself, but his imagery heals people. When they see it, they can talk about it. That’s powerful, and that’s good medicine.”
Susanville Indian veteran reunion, at Veterans Memorial Building
Dugan Aguilar in front of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall,
the war in which he served as a US Marine.
The Maidu community made him a warrior when he returned and gave him a beaded golden eagle feather award. His mother transformed his uniform into a quilt.
POINT OF VIEW
Aguilar’s images reflect his commitment to establishing trust with those he photographed. For many of the cultural events, he was the only photographer allowed to attend. Family members speak of Dugan Aguilar’s humility and unobtrusiveness. “His camera, you didn’t really notice; he didn’t interfere with anything,” his cousin Ike Lowry recalled. “He was able to be accepted into positions of taking photos that were sensitive.” Aguilar’s respect for his people extended even to the words he used to refer to his craft, avoiding predatory terms like “taking” or “shooting” photographs.
Sandra Lowry (Yurok) introduced Aguilar to her people’s Yurok and Karuk Brush Dance ceremonies. “There was an elegance about him,” she recalled. “People looked at him as another Indian. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t our tribe. We want Indians to do this. Dugan’s photography, even just being in black and white, is a balance,” she said. “There’s so much when you look at a color picture: Do I look at that piece of the ceremonial regalia? Do I look at the red of the woodpecker or the green of the mallard? . . . That’s the quiet background that I felt with Dugan.” Sandra Lowry suggests that photography also served as Aguilar’s personal ceremony of healing.
Initially a portraitist, Aguilar gave large, matted prints to those he photographed in an extension of the traditional Indigenous systems of reciprocity. Thus, a generation of California Indian people have grown accustomed to seeing his photographs in their homes. Eventually, his photographs of the artistry of basketmaking led to his becoming the official photographer for the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association, and he was a frequent contributor to News from Native California, a magazine devoted to California’s Native peoples.
A student of Ansel Adams, Aguilar is well-known for his landscapes.
Liz Aguilar, Death Valley; Tuolumne Roundhouse
Commonly called Self-Portrait, this is an example of Aguilar's famous sense of humor.
Taken at the Buena Vista Peaks.
* For reasons that remain a mystery to me and outside my control, this App occasionally chops off the tops of images. No disrespect is intended to Dugan Aguilalar or the subjects of these works.
For more information about this exhibition, click here.
