The showstopper in Vaginal Davis’s new exhibition, Magnificent Product, at MoMA PS1 is a large phallus tucked into a rotating bed, titled “The Wicked Pavilion: Tween Bedroom” (2021). This massive recreation of the multidisciplinary artist’s preteen bedroom winks ironically at the viewer: A large erect penis — supposedly a symbol of masculine virility — is surrounded by pink, culturally coded as feminine. On the wall in the corner of the bedroom is a picture of activist Angela Davis, to whom the artist nods with her nom de plume.
Every work by Vaginal Davis plays some kind of game with scale. That old adage “size matters” doesn’t fully articulate the ways that Ms. Davis (as she’s often referred to) enlarges and shrinks her subject matter, but it reflects the punk undercurrents of her art. The fairy godmother of the Los Angeles queercore scene, she brought gender-bending to the punk and hardcore music scenes of LA and New York in the 1970 and ’80s before further establishing herself as an artist and curator.
Vaginal Davis, “The Wicked Pavilion: Tween Bedroom” (2021) (photo Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic)
For her survey, Ms. Davis oscillates between the miniature and the monumental as a strategy to jolt viewers out of complacency and see the imagery anew. Each room at PS1 functions like a show within a show, with an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek title and a different genre or theme. For the one-room installation “Sucking Her Unborn Cock – Archivist Headache Wall” (1970s–present), she coalesces innumerable tiny pieces of ephemera and photos that portray herself and members of her counterculture. Conversely, “HAG – small, contemporary, haggard” (2012) is an enclosed room with a sharply slanted floor that forces viewers to confront large sculptures of Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake created from sourdough and preservatives. The floor slant is so extreme that footing can feel unstable. The walls are covered with silkscreened silhouettes of women’s faces, which Ms. Davis calls “Lesbiana Domesticity wallpaper” (2012).
Ms. Davis’s use of scale to coax double takes is most evident in “The Wicked Pavillon: the Fantasia Library” (2021). Using nail polish and makeup, she creates small likenesses of the queer, Black, and punk writers who inspire her on the back of postcards and other ephemera. For example, the small scale of an Octavia Butler portrait draws us in close, perhaps to ponder the limits of makeup as a medium and a symbol for the underappreciated creative geniuses who don’t happen to be pale, male, and straight as a nail.
In contrast, the sheer volume of archival ephemera featured in the one-room installation “Sucking Her Unborn Cock – Archivist Headache Wall (1970s-present) feels colossal. Hundreds of photos and flyers are stashed behind curtains, so viewers have to literally peak behind the veil. Vaginal Davis once remarked in an interview that “High femme insight and determination on all matters gives my art that special oomph that draws people in from all walks of life.” That oomph is amplified by a scaling up and scaling down that pulls us in before facing us with the artist’s grand legacy and iconoclastic presence.
Detail of Vaginal Davis “Sucking Her Unborn Cock – Archivist Headache Wall (1970s – Present) (all photos by Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic)
Curator Hendrik Folkerts poses within an installation by Vaginal Davis, “HAG – small, contemporary, haggard” (2012)
Installation view of Vaginal Davis, “The Wicked Pavillon: the Fantasia Library” (2021)
Installation View of Vaginal Davis “Sucking Her Unborn Cock – Archivist Headache Wall (1970s–present)
Detail of Vaginal Davis “Sucking Her Unborn Cock – Archivist Headache Wall (1970s–present)
Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product, continues at MoMA PS1 (22–25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens) through March 2, 2026. The exhibition was organized by Hendrik Folkerts; the New York iteration was organized by Jody Graf and Sheldon Gooch.
