Prof. Monica Majoli wins a prestigious Hammer Museum award

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times by Deborah Vankin
July 15, 2021

"The Hammer Museum announced Thursday that L.A. artist Kandis Williams, co-founder of Cassandra Press and a visiting faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts, will receive the museum’s $100,000 Mohn Award for artistic excellence.

The museum also announced two other awards in conjunction with this year’s “Made in L.A. 2020: a version” biennial. The Career Achievement Award, for “brilliance and resilience,” will go to painter Monica Majoli; the Public Recognition Award will go to painter Fulton Leroy Washington, a.k.a. Mr. Wash. Both of those artists will receive $25,000 each.

...

L.A. painter Majoli often addresses homoeroticism and sexual fetishism in her work. Her “Blueboys” series, which she’s been developing since 2015, depicts centerfolds who appeared in the now-defunct gay lifestyle and porn magazine “Blueboy” from 1976 to 1979. Her delicate, pastel-hued watercolor woodcut transfers suggest imminent tragedy given that the AIDS epidemic was on the horizon at the time her subjects were photographed."