Tanya Aguiñiga
Tanya Aguiñiga (b. 1978) is a Los Angeles-based artist/designer/craftsperson who was raised in Tijuana, Mexico. She holds an MFA in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design and a BA from San Diego State University. In her formative years, she created various collaborative installations with the Border Arts Workshop, an artists’ group that engages the languages of activism and community-based public art. Her current work uses craft as a performative medium to generate dialogues about identity, culture, and gender while creating community.
Aguiñiga is the founder and director of AMBOS (Art Made Between Opposite Sides), an ongoing series of artist interventions and commuter collaborations that address bi-national transition and identity in the US/Mexico border regions. AMBOS seeks to create a greater sense of interconnectedness while simultaneously documenting the border.
TANYA AGUIÑIGA
B. 1978, San Diego, CA
Lives and works in Los Angeles.
EDUCATION
2005 MFA, Rhode Island School of Design
2003 BA, San Diego State University
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 Weighted, albertz benda, New York, NY
2024 Telar Terrenal / Earthly Loom, Nazarian / Curcio,
Los Angeles, CA
2023 Swallowing Dirt, Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL
2020 Extraño, Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL
2018 Craft and Care, Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York
2017 Reindigenizing the Self, Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL
2015 Mothering the Form, Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL
2014 Fiber Elements, Reform Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Sea Change, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA
2013 The Driftless Zone, Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL
2011 Crossing the Line, Craft and Folk Art Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
2008 wrapped welded woven, Reform Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Interior Active, San Diego State Everett Gee Jackson Gallery, San Diego, CA
2002 Sola Show, the Farm, San Diego, CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez, Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Intertwined: Weaving in Community, Sun Valley Museum of Art, Ketchum, ID
In the Shadow of the Wall, Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT
2023 AMBOS, Made in L.A., The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2023 Exhibition, New York, NY
New Abstracts: Recent Acquisitions, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
2022 California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art,
Costa Mesa, CA
Hella Feminist, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World, Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC
LatinXAmerican, Lubeznik Center for the Arts,
Michigan City, IN
2021 A New Realism, Curated by Glenn Adamson,
Friedman Benda, New York
LatinXAmerican, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL
2020 Objects: USA 2020, Curated by Glenn Adamson, James Zemaitis, Abby Bangser, and Even Snyderman, R & Company, New York, NY
2018 Disrupting Craft, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
2017 The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility, PST LA/LA, Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM),
Los Angeles, CA
On Going Home, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2016 AMBOS, Consulate General of Mexico, Los Angeles, CA
Conglomerate Objects, The Chan Gallery of the Pomona College, Claremont, CA
Textiles: The Sense of Touch, Lyndon House Arts Foundation, Athens, GA
Sight Unseen Site Specific: L.A., Austere, Los Angeles, CA
FiberLicous, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles, CA
California Handmade: State of the Art, Maloof Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
2015 A Long Engagement: Wendy Maruyama and Her Students, University Gallery, San Diego State University,
San Diego, CA
Gentle Abstractions, Loomis Gallery, Mansfield University, PA
Bananas, Nina Johnson, Miami, FL
Creative Cultivation, dublab’s 2015 Fundraiser Salon, JF
Chen, Los Angeles, CA
Five to Life: A Very Serious Reenactment, Volume Gallery,
Chicago, CA
Loving After Lifetimes of All This, Kansas City, MO
2014 Future Tropes, Design Miami, Volume Gallery, Miami, FL
superPac, presented by Design Milk, West Edge Design Fair,
Santa Monica, CA
IN/SITU, Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL
The Art of Geometry, collaboration with Mashup Contemporary Dance Company, New York, NY and Los
Angeles, CA
LA x Milano at Blanco Milano, Salone del Mobile, Milan, IT
Home Away, Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts,
Pasadena, CA
2013 SUR Biennial, Rio Hondo College, Whittier, CA
Re-Store LA, Hammer Museum Pop-Up, Los Angeles, CA
Shag Curves, Kasthall Booth: International Contemporary Furniture Fair, New York, NY
East, Meet West, Design Milk, Bobby Berk Home,
New York, NY
Felt Suit, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Call of the Wild, LA Mart, Los Angeles, CA
2012 All Good Things Become Wild and Free, Carthage
College, WI
Salon #9, Works 270-300, Marine Contemporary, Los
Angeles, CA
Les Femmes, Los Angeles Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Shared Thread, California African American Museum, Los
Angeles, CA
Hotel California, Standard Hotel for ICFF, New York, NY
SCALE: Presented by Architizer, Dwell and Cool Hunting, Standard Hotel for ICFF, New York, NY
Entwined Affairs, Den Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA
Fresh Start, Barkar Hangar Santa Monica, CA
2011 NAFTA Artists, San Diego Art Fair, San Diego, CA
Come In!, Los Angeles Architecture and Design Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
Textiles Tieton: Gimme Shelter,Mighty Tieton, Tieton, WA
Inaugural NOHO Design District with Sight Unseen, Great Jones Lumber, New York, NY
La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Inaugural Gala Festivities Design, Los Angeles, CA
Source LA, LA Mart Design Center, Los Angeles, CA
Xanadu, Specific Merchandise, Los Angeles, CA
California Design Biennial, Pasadena Museum of CA
Design, Pasadena, CA
2010 Lineas: New Modes of Contemporary Urbanism: Recent Work by Tanya Aguiñiga and Teddy Cruz, MACLA, San
Jose, CA
FourSite: 4 Materials | 4 Artists | 4 Sites, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
Studio Furniture: The Next Generation, Minneapolis College of Art and Design Gallery,University of Wisconsin-Madison and Herron School of Art and Design, Indianapolis, IN
Fresh Start, Santa Monica Art Studios, Santa Monica, CA
Tanya Aguiniga: Pop Up Shop!, New York, NY and Los
Angeles, CA
Natural Selections, 5th Floor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Latin American Design Exhibition, Design Miami,
Miami, FL
Green Furniture Design, Chipstone Foundation,
Milwaukee, WI&l