Juan Vicente Aliaga Ugarte
(1959 - living) Spain
Critic
The son of a Spanish migrant domestic worker, he spent part of his childhood in Paris, He later graduated in art history from the University of Valencia, and during his years as a student he was actie in the Troskyist (extreme left) political movement. Troskyist at that time were the only left party accepting gay men, and Aliaga experienced homophobia from the left.
In the mid 1980s he held lectureship in Spanish at Oxford University. On returning to Spain he gained a position as a lecturer in art theory in the Valencian Faculty of Fine Arts, where he still teaches.
Although his work was always theoretically informed, it was the onset of Aids and the silence on the topic in Spain that meant a turning point in his career. His work did much to break taboos on sexuality and make homosexuality visible as an artistic position.
His critical theory and gender-based criticism have not found much favour in Spanish academia until very recently.
Books:
- De amor y rabia (1993)
- Identitad y diferencia (1997)
- Bajo vientre (1998)
Source: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, Routledge, London, 2001
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