Presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), Monica Majoli: Countervision is an exhibition on view from September 19 - November 21, 2026 at The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood, CA. The show brings together a suite of new drawings by artist Monica Majoli alongside materials from her archival research and objects from the Mazer's collections.
What follows is a lightly modified version of the text from the Monica Majoli: Countervision brochure, accompanied by related installation photography by Evan Bedford.
Over the past year, artist Monica Majoli has traveled across the United States to conduct in-depth research in the archives of pioneering lesbian photographers Joan E. Biren (JEB), Tee A. Corinne, Honey Lee Cottrell, and Ruth Mountaingrove. In the summers between 1979 to 1983, these artists participated in the Feminist Photography Ovulars, a series of photography workshops at the lesbian-feminist commune of Rootworks near Wolf Creek, Oregon.
Majoliâs investment in these archives is elicited by the revolutionary impulse of the photographic material generated during these weeks-long seminars. The Ovulars spurred lesbian feminist photographers to engage with the technical aspects of the medium, as well as theoretical and feminist approaches, utilizing photography as a tool and means of deliverance and self-realization.
The women were collectively in search of a lesbian image that might change the world once found. They sought a countervision to upend patriarchy and the hierarchies of objectification, and in their place center female agency. Most crucially, they strove to vanquish lesbian invisibility. Toward that end, the workshops culminated with the annual publication of three issues of The Blatant Image: A Magazine of Feminist Photography (1981-1983), a photo journal that featured the work and experiences of the participants. The overarching motivation of these gatherings was, as Tee A. Corinne wrote in 2006, shortly before her untimely death of cancer at age 62, âto make images that read as lesbian.â
For Countervision, Majoli presents a series of drawings set in The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives of images sourced from the Tee Corinne papers housed at the University of Oregon Libraries, focusing on photographs taken at the Ovulars. The drawings tenderly render the bodies of nude women collectively creating together.
The majority of the works are presented in a five-drawer flat file within the extensive collections at the Mazer. There are two drawings in each drawer, grouped by paper color. Underscoring their intimacy, the works are unframed and you are encouraged to handle them with care. When both drawings are removed, another image is revealed. Each drawer is lined with a negative also sourced from the Tee Corinne Papers with a photograph taken during the Ovulars.
While the flat file is sourced from the archive, it sits on a custom-built display structure that references the materials and DIY architecture captured in the images from the Ovulars. Carved down one wall is a reproduction of Corinne's handwriting pulled from a image where the artist identified the women in a group photograph. In a shelf above the flat file are the three issues of The Blatant Image and three books: Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbian by JEB, Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front by JEB, and Yantras of Womanlove: Diagrams of Energy by Tee Corinne. Visitors are welcome to flip through the publications, providing opportunities to see more of the Ovulars and the images by the women who participated.
Moving through the archives, a series of five smaller drawings have been embedded among the concert posters, campaign buttons, and stacks of boxes in the archives. The subject of these drawings is sourced from a single contact sheet Majoli found in the the Tee Corinne Papers. The drawings depict two nude women partnering in a variety of acrobatic positions.
Across the room stands a filing cabinet with a drawer labeled Countervision. Within it, Majoli has compiled books, magazines, and photo documentation related to her research. The central element is an archival box that Majoli has assembled, with over a dozen folders labeled by artist and subject, including "In Nature," "Lovers," and "Self-Portrait." Majoli has taken her personal photos from her visits to the archives at the University of Oregon and Cornell University to create high quality prints for you to explore at your leisure and guided by your individual interest. These materials, over 100 objects, provide a point of access to both the labor and considerations within Majoliâs drawings.
As you exit the archives, in the center of the adjacent community room is a vitrine and bulletin board where Majoli has curated a concise selection of materials from the Simone Wallace Sisterhood Bookstore Collection stewarded by the Mazer.
In operation from 1972 to 1999 in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood, Sisterhood Bookstore was an independent bookstore and feminist community hub founded by Simone Wallace, Adele Wallace, and Gahan Kelley. The shop served as a gathering space, bringing together like-minded people with events featuring leading voices from the womenâs movement, including Angela Davis, bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, and Alice Walker, amongst many other writers and activists. In the shelving unit behind the vitrine, youâll find 30 boxes that encompass the full Sisterhood Bookstore collection. If interested, these boxes and a finding aid can be made available to you for further exploration.
Playing on the adjacent monitor are two videos. The first video is C-SPAN documentation of Sisterhood Bookstore's 25th anniversary fundraiser from November 3, 1997. Hosted at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles, speakers included the aforementioned hooks and Steinem, as well as Congresswoman Maxine Waters, poet Eloise Klein Healy, and writer Michele Serros advocating on the essential role of Sisterhood Bookstore within the city and feminist movement. The second video is by Yolanda Retter documenting a farewell gathering in 1999 at the bookstore, in the days before it permanently closed. A portrait of both the physical space and community, the hour and forty-one minute recording features singing and prayers, alongside authors and customers sharing reflections on what the store meant to them.
As a young woman growing up in Los Angeles and coming into her sexuality, Majoli and her worldview were deeply influenced by Sisterhood Bookstore. It was there, as a teenager, that she first encountered images of lesbians living full lives, including photographs by the artists who participated in the Ovulars. These works and the photographersâ quest to locate a definitive lesbian sphere continue to hold palpable potential for Majoli, driving the new body of work presented in Countervision.
Bringing together the Ovulars and Sisterhood Bookstore, this exhibition continues Majoliâs ongoing exploration of sexuality, memory, and precarity through the engagement of archival materials. While the workshops have concluded, the bookstore has shuttered, and many of the women depicted have since passed away, Majoliâs work makes present what is absent. For her, history does not have a fixed meaning, but rather offers an emotional complexity that continues to reverberate.
Credits & Support
Monica Majoli: Countervision is presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) and organized by Christopher Mangum-James, LAND deputy director.
Lead support is provided by Karyn Kohl. Generous support is provided by Geraldine Chung, Jordan S. Goodman, Alan Hergott & Curt Shepard, Karen Hillenburg, Laura S. Maslon, and Wilhelm Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by Michael Breland, William Escalera & Francisco George, Galerie Buchholz, Katie Grube, Hoffman Donahue, Michael Rubel & Kristin Rey, Honora Shea, Berry Stein, and Ben Weyerhaeuser. Special thanks to Annie Philbin & Cynthia Wornham.
This project would not be possible without the board, staff, and volunteers at The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, including Executive Director Kymn Goldstein and Archivist Alisha Graefe.
Image Credits
Installation views of Monica Majoli: Countervision, September 19 - December 21, 2026. Photo by Evan Bradford, courtesy of Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND).
Ovulars II group photograph. Photo by Ruth Mountaingrove. The Blatant Image, No. 1, 1981, back cover.
Sisterhood Bookstore storefront. Photo from the Simone Wallace Sisterhood Bookstore Collection, courtesy of The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.