Below is the brochure copy for Monica Majoli: Countervision, an exhibition presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) that brings together a suite of new drawings by artist Monica Majoli alongside materials from her archival research and objects she has curated from The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.
The exhibition is on view from September 19 - November 21, 2026 at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood, CA.
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 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 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 archives. While the flat file is sourced from the Mazer, it sits on a custom-built display structure that references the materials and DIY architecture captured in the images from the Ovulars. Underscoring their intimacy, the works are unframed and you are encouraged to handle them with care. In addition, a series of five smaller drawings have been discreetly embedded among the concert posters, campaign buttons, and stacks of boxes in the archives.
Across from the room from the flat files stands a filing cabinet where Majoli has compiled books, ephemera, and photo documentation of her research. These materials 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 is a video by Yolanda Retter documenting a farewell gathering at Sisterhood Bookstore before it permanently closed. Capturing both the physical space and community, the hour and forty-one minute recording features authors and customers sharing their 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.