Join us for the first in a series of artist-led walkthroughs of Millie Wilson: The Museum of Lesbian Dreams, Saturday, November 14 at 2:00 p.m.
The series brings together artists who are former students, colleagues, or whose work has been influenced by Wilson’s art and practice, offering unique perspectives on the exhibition and her enduring impact.
On November 14, internationally acclaimed photographer Catherine Opie will lead an intimate walkthrough of The Museum of Lesbian Dreams, sharing her insights into Wilson’s work and artistic legacy.
The exhibition features a large-format portrait of Millie Wilson by Opie, a rare early work that is a central element of Wilson’s groundbreaking 1989 installation, Fauve Semblant: Peter (A Young English Girl). Originally presented at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), the installation has been recreated in its entirety at The Luckman Gallery.
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About Catherine Opie
Catherine Opie (b. 1961) is one of the most important photographers of her generation. Her subjects have included early portraits of her community, the architecture of Los Angeles’ freeways, mansions in Beverly Hills, Midwestern icehouses, high school football players, California surfers, and abstract landscapes of National Parks, among others. Merging conceptual and documentary styles, she creates pieces relating to sexual identity; to the relationship between the individual and the space they inhabit; and to the tensions between the constructed American dream and the diverse realities of its citizens. She was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow recipient and the Robert Mapplethorpe Resident in Photography at the American Academy in Rome for 2021. Opie opened major exhibitions in 2026 at the Fridericianum, Kassel, in February; The National Portrait Gallery, London, in March; Posten Moderne in Trondheim, in June and The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, in August. She has exhibited at international venues such as Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Photographer’s Gallery in London, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark and MASP in São Paulo. Opie’s work is held in over 50 major collections throughout the world. Opie received a B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988. Opie was a professor of photography at UCLA for 25 years. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
About the Exhibition
The Museum of Lesbian Dreams is the first retrospective exhibition showcasing over three decades of Millie Wilson’s work (United States, b. 1948). An influential yet underrecognized artist and pedagogue who taught generations of artists at the California Institute of the Arts, Wilson has deftly examined feminism, queerness, and the historical erasure of such positions within institutions of art. Organized by the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the exhibition unites major loans from museums, private collections, and the artist. The Luckman Gallery’s presentation contextualizes Wilson’s substantial work, influential pedagogy, and legacy.
Wilson joined 1980s postmodernism with the personally and politically charged conceptualism of the 1990s. Wilson mounted her works that appropriated museum practices and authority under an expansive project titled “The Museum of Lesbian Dreams,” an assertion of queer world-making as well as a mockery of the Freudian obsession with the unconscious and midcentury sexology research.
The exhibition emphasizes Wilson’s consistent appropriation of museum display practices and institutional authority, her art historical references to Dada and surrealism, her sharp attention to gendered portrayals of sexual deviance in early twentieth-century psychoanalysis and sexology, and her longstanding interest in bodies as unruly and contested sites. A selection of ephemera and teaching materials demonstrates how Wilson’s work enfolds LGBTQ cultures, art histories, and activism in the United States.
Curated by David Evans Frantz
Organized for Krannert Art Museum by Amy L. Powell
Organized for The Luckman by Aaron Gomez
Image: Detail from Leotard, Cheater, Painter. 1989. Stretched fabric, gelatin silver print, acrylic on canvas, vinyl type, and panel mounted on Dibond. Photo: Taryn Mills Photography. Courtesy of the artist.
Supported by
David Evans Frantz
David Evans Frantz has been preparing this exhibition since 2019, working closely with Millie Wilson. His curatorial work has focused on bringing attention to overlooked queer artists, seen in the exhibitions Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art and Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. (both co-curated with C. Ondine Chavoya). With Christina Linden and Chris E. Vargas, Frantz is co-editor of the book Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects, a publication of the Museum of Trans History & Art (MOTHA). Frantz is Executive Director of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation.
Amy L. Powell
Amy L. Powell is a curator and writer based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she serves as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Krannert Art Museum and Curator of Campus Arts Research in the Office for Arts Integration. Her research engages contemporary art with a commitment to university art museums as sites for knowledge production and experimentation. Her research has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Aaron Gomez
Aaron Gomez is a Los Angeles-based curator. He carries a BFA from the University of New Mexico. Since 2021, he has been Gallery Manager at The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA. He previously served as curator at Haphazard Gallery. Recent curatorial highlights at The Luckman include solo presentations of artists Brian Zamora and Raymundo T. Reynoso, and Amina Cruz.
Exhibition Hours
October 24, 2026 – April 10, 2027:
Wednesday – Saturday
12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
During Luckman Theatre presentations:
1 hour prior to start time + during intermission.
By appointment:
To request, please email us here.
Admission to The Luckman Gallery is free.
Parking
Guest parking permits can be purchased at physical pay stations located in designated pay lots or through PayByPhone. All permits are virtual, and your vehicle’s license plate number is required at the time of purchase.
PayByPhone
– Current rate for a one-hour parking permit: $4.30
– Visa and MasterCard only.
– The rate is inclusive of all taxes and fees.
One-Hour Parking
One-hour parking permit is available at:
- Lot 4A — PayByPhone location code: 1576
- University Student Union lot — PayByPhone location code: 1577
Please note: Only one-hour daily permits are available and valid in these locations.
Additional Parking
Parking is also available directly in front of The Luckman on the top level of Structure C. During campus events and performances, as well as on weekends, event parking rates apply in this structure.
Directions to The Luckman Gallery
From Lot 4A — Google Maps
From University Student Union — Google Maps
From Structure C — Google Maps
From the Cal State LA Transit Center — Google Maps