Countervision

Los Angeles Nomadic Division presents Monica Majoli: Countervision, an exhibition that brings together a suite of new drawings by artist Monica Majoli with materials she curated from The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Majoli is internationally celebrated for work that uses representations of sexuality to examine broader cultural and social forces. Primarily working across drawing, painting, and printmaking, her practice treats the body as a political site that is shaped by history.

This exhibition grew out of archival research Majoli conducted throughout the United States, mining the collections of lesbian photographers Joan E. Biren (JEB), Tee A. Corinne, Honey Lee Cottrell, and Ruth Mountaingrove. Between 1979 and 1983, these artists led and participated in the Ovulars, a series of workshops hosted at the Rootworks lesbian feminist commune in rural Oregon. The workshops spurred participating 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 self-realization.

For Countervision, Majoli presents a series of drawings set in The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. Sourced from photographs taken at the Ovulars, the works tenderly render the bodies of nude women collectively creating together. A grouping of drawings are presented in a five-drawer flat file within a custom-built display structure. Underscoring their intimacy, the works are unframed and you are encouraged to handle them with care. Other drawings and related materials have been discreetly embedded within the extensive collections at the Mazer, and visitors will be guided to experience them.

Alongside her work, Majoli has curated objects from the Mazer's holdings of Sisterhood Bookstore, a feminist community hub that operated in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood from 1972 until 1999. 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.

Bringing together the Ovulars and Sisterhood Bookstore, Majoli continues her 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, Majoli’s drawings make present what is absent. For her, history does not have a fixed meaning, but rather offers an emotional complexity that continues to reverberate.

Appointments are available Thursday through Saturday from 11AM—5PM. You can make your appointment here.

If you would like to visit outside of the above days and times, please contact Christopher Mangum-James, LAND Deputy Director, at christopher@nomadicdivision.org.

Monica Majoli (b. 1963 in Los Angeles) is an artist whose practice examines the relationship between physicality and consciousness through the documentary sexual image. Shifts in materiality mark bodies of work that investigate intimacy and power within the larger context of queer culture and history. Majoli received her MFA and BA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Since 2006, Majoli has been on faculty at the University of California, Irvine in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. She has also taught at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the Graduate Studies program at Yale University School of Art.

Majoli’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Hammer Museum; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Getty Research Institute; the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts; and the Pinault Collection.

The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives located in West Hollywood, CA is a vital force in preserving lesbian, feminist, and queer women's history. For decades, the Mazer has provided researchers and community members a space to access and explore the past.

The archives include personal papers, organizational papers, photographs, periodicals, subject files, books, audiovisual materials, and ephemera spanning decades, creating a living record of community activism, creativity, and resilience.

Founded in 1981 as the West Coast Lesbian Collections in Oakland, CA, the Archive was moved to Southern California in 1985 by June L. Mazer and her partner Bunny MacCulloch. Two years later, after June died of cancer, the collection was renamed and moved to the Werle Building in West Hollywood where it still resides today.

Stewarded by generations of committed volunteers for over 45 years, the Mazer transitioned to its first full-time Archivist and Executive Director in 2025.

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.

LAND’s 2026 projects are supported by the LAND Artist Fund with lead support from Karyn Kohl, Offield Family Foundation, and Perenchio Foundation. Generous support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, Ruth Arts, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Goodman Family Foundation, the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition, Berry Stein, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, Brenda Potter, the San Francisco Foundation, and LAND’s Nomadic Council.

Image: Ovulars contact sheet, Box 152, Tee A. Corinne papers Special Collections & University Archives, Coll. 263, University of Oregon Libraries.