Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laura Aguilar


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep per the discussion. Megalibrarygirl and some others explained it in detail. (non-admin closure) Mhhossein (talk) 12:26, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Laura Aguilar

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Per WP:Artist, does not seem to meet guidelines for notability.

There is only one source (an essay by Daniel Perez, who seems to have been a grad student at Claremont and who has only published this one paper, which is about several people and only been cited once) that is substantive criticism of her work.

There is no evidence she has l originated a new technique or theory.

No single work of hers seems to have been the subject of enough discussion to warrant her inclusion.

The article reflects that her work is in several public collections, though it doesn't say permanent collection, and I don't think that the galleries themselves are notable enough.

If this article isn't going to be deleted, it needs rewriting to reflect broader criticism, and it needs to read less like the biography I would read in a brochure for an exhibit. The article is currently the subject of some minor vandalism as she seems to have come up for discussion on the internet. Smith (talk)  19:56, 9 April 2016 (UTC)  Smith  (talk)  22:23, 9 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep: I'm not sure how the proposer can say there is only one source when there are (and were at the time of proposing) 14 references. One of these regards a retrospective as part of the upcoming Pacific Standard Time LA/LA shows; not only is this a very prestigious series, but a museum retrospective is considered the highest possible achievement in the contemporary art world. So that alone would be per WP:Artist 4(b). Aguilar is also a 2000 recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Award, another prestigous marker — admittedly this isn't yet in her page, but I noticed her name on the award page and am mentioning it here because it supports a keep argument. The references as a whole appear solid to me. Page should be tagged for improvement, not deletion.Alafarge (talk) 15:14, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * What I meant when I said not enough references was that a significant amount of the references seemed to be to things that she'd written or shows that she'd done, and that there was only one piece of critical work about her art. I think the 2000 award is probably enough to make a better argument for notability, but that information wasn't present. Smith  (talk)  22:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see. I've done some cleanup work on the refs, and added some more sources under Further Reading because I don't have time to run them down myself.Alafarge (talk) 00:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep Meets WP:ARTIST #4b and #4d. Aguilar's work is in the permanent collection of several major museums, LACMA and the Museum_of_Contemporary_Art,_Los_Angeles. Her work was in Aperto at the Venice Benienal in 1993. She is in a number of encyclopedic works like Women Artists of the American West and the Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures. Statements by critic Amelia Jones in Artforum (October 2003) about the importance of her work satisfy WP:ARTIST #1. Aguilar also meets WP:ARTIST#3; her work has been the subject of an independent book and multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. See the Further reading section for a list of citations. Additionally, while this is not a criterion specifically mentioned in WP:ARTIST, it does give an indication of her importance; her papers are in the special Collection of the Stanford University Manuscripts Division. Mduvekot (talk) 16:40, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep Aguilar may or may not satisfy WP:ARTIST, but she certainly appears to satisfy WP:GNG. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 17:29, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, if not Speedy Delete based on Criterion A7 To begin, this article sounds like an advertisement and there is nothing to indicate special notability beyond being an esoteric artist. It is written with a very biased outlook that seems to be trying to justify the article's notability by attempting to answer each criterion separately as the article is divided. It was either written by the author or a shill, because it says nothing of any negative criticism but gushes praise. It clearly falls short of the criteria for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons I suppose I'll begin this autopsy but looking at sources. To begin, 1, 2, 4, 10, and 13 have dead links that go only to error pages. 3, 5, 6, and 7 are mentions, no longer than one or two lines, and provide very little genuine information and are instead essentially trivial mentions. 14, 15 and 16 are simply lists of works in certain collections, but provide no biographical or artistic connections. Now we reach 11, which was written in first person by the artist and is thus only useful for quotations; it is obviously not a reliable third-party source. 12 is an article written by a student in a journal for CGU that no longer exists. It was not written by any authority on the topic, and even then only covers Aguilar's connection to a subject, not an entire paper on her; in fact, the journal itself states: "The goal of LUX is to provide a venue where scholars of different fields can highlight their unique findings for the very first time. Stemmed from eligible submissions to the yearly student research conference hosted by Claremont Graduate University, our journal provides an engaging forum where scholarly exchange is encouraged." That is not a well regarded scholarly journal entry by an authority on the subject or even vetted by authorities on the subject. The citation for AlmaLopez.com has a tiny unsourced entry, unavailable without a direct link, written by someone with a personal interest, but no authority (a college junior Spanish major whose "interest in LGBT was sparked by curiosity" and plans to attend med school). Furthermore, while Lopez is highly regarded, she only seems to mention Aguilar because their works both cover Latina and Lesbian ideas. It is not an article introducing the next prodigy or underrated lifetime achiever. Lopez, Cheryl Dunye, and Annie Liebovitz are people who are relevant enough for articles on very similar subjects, because they pass Wikipedia notability standards and the citation/verifiability standards for a biographical entry. If I were to erase unsourced material, this article would be a couple of sentences long. I am rather dismayed that only the OP seems to have read Wikipedia's definitions of their standards (just because you think it is significant, reliable, and encyclopedic doesn't make it so) or verified any of the citations. I encourage those who decide to respond to this deletion request to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability before doing so. If you are pro- or anti- Reddit article on Aguilar and here to conduct your cyber warfare between one another, please take your fight back to Reddit. TwoSpear 21:03, 10 April 2016 (UTC) — TwoSpear (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Assuming that people who disagree with you don't know anything is hardly very civil; and what on earth does Reddit have to do with anything? With respect to dead links: I have checked them all and found precisely one that was actually dead (Noriega) but the article itself certainly exists as a quick check in Google Scholar or a library will confirm. Another link (socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu) is not connecting but the site itself is not dead since I've visited it very recently; this can be rechecked later. Some mentions are certainly minor, but two (Valladolid, Perez) existing refs are solidly focused on her work (even if only one aspect of it), as is the museum retrospective. You may not think these journals matter, but others clearly do. And without even looking very hard, I found 6 more sources, all of which were focused either solely or partly on Aguilar's work; I've listed these under Further Reading as I don't have time to hunt them down myself at the moment. Lots of potential there for others to improve the page.Alafarge (talk) 00:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I have fixed all dead links in the references. Please refer to the references by name rather than by number, as the number of references has changed since commented. Mduvekot (talk) 16:19, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, I would like to add that it's important as an editor participating in AfD that you not only point out what sources in the article are RS or not, but that you hunt down dead links, as the others did and look to see if there are other sources about her. Notability does not depend on what is in the article, only that sources exist. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep She passes GNG if nothing else (though and  have shown she should pass WP:ARTIST). But let's look at the references which  claims are invalid.
 * 1) Alma López reference is another notable artist and a lecturer at UCLA. That gives her authority. The entry here is hardly "tiny." The point of the site is to highlight Latina and Queer artists, so Agular's inclusion here is hardly surprising. The entry was written by a student, but obviously vetted by López for inclusion.
 * 2) The UCLA center of gender studies is an RS
 * 3) The guide to the Laura Aguilar collection is an RS . I am dismayed that it was overlooked that Chon Noriega was the critic mentioned here. He is important in Chicano art history.
 * 4) The San Jose piece on Chicano Photography  discusses her work in depth and is an RS.
 * 5) The book Women of Color and Feminism discusses her work in several paragraphs, though I can't see the entire preview
 * 6) There is no reason to discount the Lux article as an RS. Lux is hosted by a reputable university, had an editorial board and encouraged scholarly articles. The fact that there is an editorial board shows that the submissions were indeed vetted. Also, the fact that Lux is no longer publishing has no bearing on it being an RS.
 * 7) Her artist statement  is in the first person and is being used to reference her quote. That's perfectly acceptable.
 * Keep The references back up the claims to notability and her presence in a number of museums helps this article easily pass WP:GNG.  freshacconci  talk to me  19:31, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep. Goodness, gracious. Guide to the Laura Aguilar Papers and Photographs, 1981-1995, California Digital Library, Vincent Price Museum announcement of upcoming retrospective of her work, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, World Cat extensive listings under her name. Several pages of links come up for her under a Google search. I think she qualifies under WP:ARTIST, or at the very least WP:GNG. — Maile  (talk) 20:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep. Per this and this  she clearly passes WP:ARTIST and per other links WP:GNG. Arthistorian1977 (talk) 07:47, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:37, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:37, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Artists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:37, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.