After the lazy, hazy days of summer, fall is a time to refocus and reimagine, and that goes for the art world too. This season, exhibitions across the city delve into important but underrecognized artists and movements, challenging what we thought we knew. Monica Majoli presents a series of drawings inspired by an influential lesbian photography workshop alongside material from the erstwhile Sisterhood Bookstore. Nurtured Flames at the Armory features Indigenous artists who explore Native fire stewardship, while Flesh Witness at REDCAT reveals systems of power and militarism in the occupied regions of East Asia and the Pacific. A career retrospective of late Beirut-born artist Huguette Caland at the Hammer celebrates the work of an artist who spent much of her life in Los Angeles, and a show on Tokio Ueyama situates him within a larger cultural and political framework of his era, including his incarceration alongside thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II. And at the Getty, an exhibition of five influential Chicanx photographers offers various views of the ever-changing metropolis of Los Angeles.
Monica Majoli: Countervision
The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, 626 North Robertson Boulevard, West Hollywood, California
September 19–November 21
Countervision pairs new drawings by American artist Monica Majoli with material from the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood. Presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), the exhibition began with Majoli’s research into the Ovulars, a series of workshops led by lesbian photographers Joan E. Biren (JEB), Tee A. Corinne, Honey Lee Cottrell, and Ruth Mountaingrove between 1979 and ’83. Majoli created drawings based on photographs taken at the Ovulars of nude women joined in creative pursuit. These are presented unframed in a custom-built display, alongside objects from the feminist hub Sisterhood Bookstore, which operated in the Westwood neighborhood from 1972 to 1999, serving as a vital resource for Majoli as a young woman growing up in LA.
Hold Each Other’s Hands: Trans Mutual Aid, 1966-1996
Oxy Arts, 4757 York Boulevard, Highland Park, Los Angeles
Through December 5
Taking its name from a phrase popularized by trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, Hold Each Other’s Hands delves into networks of communal care established by transgender people from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, framing them as models for the future. Featuring archival materials, contemporary art, and community programming, the exhibition sheds light on systems developed to provide solidarity, security, and basic needs such as housing and healthcare. Archival installations focused on unhoused trans youth in 1960s San Francisco and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970s New York City contextualize work by six LA-based artists, setting up intergenerational conversations.
Flesh Witness
REDCAT, 631 West 2nd Street, Downtown, Los Angeles
September 12–December 13
This group show examines the impact of militarism in Asia and the Pacific region, focusing on Hawai‘i, Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Samoa. Eleven artists and collectives take a critical view of how power and control are reinforced by the landscape, media, and physical structures of occupied lands. Organized by diasporic Korean arts nonprofit GYOPO and scholar Amy Kahng, Flesh Witness spans 50 years of sculpture, photography, mixed media, and installation art. Participating artists include Bernice Akamine, Mao Ishikawa, and Stephanie Syjuco.
Artifacts from an Unborn Empire
Brand Library and Art Center, 1601 West Mountain Street, Glendale, California
September 26–December 31
“History is written by the victors,” goes the old saying often misattributed to Winston Churchill, a narrow philosophy that inevitably leads to biased and sanitized narratives. Artifacts from an Unborn Empire challenges that maxim, questioning accepted chronologies and the power structures that support them. Among the 22 artists is Rubén Esparza, whose serape flag hanging from a used broom pays tribute to the unheralded labor that forms the nation’s backbone.
