Vaginal Davis
Exhibitions, CV, Press
Born 1969, Los Angeles, CA
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021
The Wicked Pavillion, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi / Eden Eden, Berlin, Germany
2020
The White to be Angry, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2018
An Invitation to the Dance, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
2015
Come On Daughter Save Me, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York, NY
Spring Awakening, Etherington Art Gallery, Kingston Ontario, Canada
2014
All Things Yayoi Kusama First Lady of the Polka Dot, Lamp Gallery, Sheros, Tokyo, Japan
2012
HAG, Participant Inc., New York, NY
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
I have done it again. / One year in every ten / I manage it——, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
2021
Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL
Witch Hunt, The Hammer Museum at UCLA and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), Los Angeles, CA
Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning 13th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea
Dear John, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
Subscribe: Artists and Alternative Magazines 1970–1995, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2020
Hollywood Babylon: A Re-Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Deitch Projects, Los Angeles, CA
Finding Our Way, lumber room, Portland, OR
2018
Breaking Wave, Participant Inc., New York, NY
Between, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Everyday Muse, ltd, Los Angeles, CA
2017
Trigger: Gender as Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York, NY
Chimera, Vaginal Davis & Louise Nevelson, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York, NY
Donna In Avalon, Portland Museum of Modern Art, Portland, OR
2015
Clifford Owens, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York, NY
Key Figures, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
Bring Your Own Body, Cooper Union, New York, NY
2014
Group Exhibition, Lamp Gallery, Sheros, Tokyo, Japan
2013
Nu Age Hustle, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY
Vaginal Davis & The Philadelphia Wireman, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
I Killed My Father, I Ate Human Flesh, I Quiver With Joy: An Obsession with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Allegra LaViola, New York, NY
2012
Bloodyminded, curated by INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, The Wye, Berlin, Germany
2011
Notes on Notes on Camp, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York, NY
2010
Stuart Sherman: Nothing Up My Sleeve, curated by Jonathan Berger, Participant Inc., New York, NY
2009
SMELL IT!, curated by Dietmar Schwärzler, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Austria
RE:akt! | reconstruction, re-enactment, re-reporting, curated by Domenico Quaranta, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Romania also at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, Croatia
Spill Performance Festival, London also at Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University, UK
2008
The Way That We Rhyme, curated by Taraneh Hemami, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2007
Womanizer, curated by Julie Atlas Muz and Kembra Pfahler, Deitch Projects, New York, NY
2006
Chinese Synthese Leberkase, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria
Not For Sale, New York University, New York, NY
2005
Founders Day: Jack Smith and the Work of Reinvention, New York, NY
2004
Fade (1990-2003): A Survey of African American Artists Working in Los Angeles, curated by Malik Gaines, Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Visions of Excess and the Philosophy of Gifts-A Tribute to George Bataille, Akisoma Institute of Contemporary Art Kodali Castle, Ljubjana, Slovenia
2002
Queer(ing) Warhol: Examining Andy Warhol’s Queer(ed) Performances, Riverside, CA
2001
Beyond Origins, Hellenic American Union, Athens, Greece
2000
Large Format Poloroids, Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY
1998
Fluxus Tributep Beck & Al Hensen: Playing With Matches, Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY
Outfest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival at Directors Guild, Los Angeles, CA
1996
Nirvana: Capitalism & the Consumed Image Series, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA
SELECT PERFORMANCES
Rising Stars, Falling Stars, monthly performative film presentation, Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst, Berlin, Germany
2017
Stealing Together, Goldsmiths’ Berlin Summer School, Berlin, Germany
Warhol Icon, Broad Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Mobile Academy-Drop Dead Gorgeous, Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany
Parliament of Bodies, documenta 14, Kassel, Germany
Gallery Lafayette Anticipation/Archive Nationales – Art & Feminisms Edition, Paris, France
Think Film Congress Nu 5—Archive Constellations, Berlinale Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
Gender Fest, Athens, Greece
2016
Creative Time Summit—Occupy the Future, Washington DC
Magic Flute—a Film in Pieces Press Conference, Goethe Institute, New York, NY
Bodies in Stages, Kunstverein Hanover, Germany
2015
The Magic Flute, 80SWE Gallery, NYU, New York, NY
Afri Papi, Diaspora Festival Internacional de Cinema Queer, Lisbon, Portugal
Twee & Sympathy, Utopias Art Festival/Turbines Curatorial Collective, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Some Other Spring, Center for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland
Perverse Assemblages, Queering Heteronormative Orders Inter/Medially, Carl von Ossietsky Universitaet, Oldenburg, Germany
2014
Visuelles Dekolonisieren Congress and Workshop, Ort Filmstudio HBK, Braunschweig, Germany
Hörspielforum NRW 2014 | Eine Veranstaltung der Film, und Medienstiftung NRW, Koln, Germany
Performance Studies Dept, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Physique Tutorial: VD’s BM -Vaginal Davis is Speaking From the Perineum, New York University, New York, NY
Wolf Moon Gathering/Girls Against God, MoMA P.S.1, Queens, NY
2013
Chew Disco-Homotopia Festival 10, Liverpool UK
Lesbi Tropicalia-Tea & Sympathy Tribute to Helio Oiticica Palmengarten, MMK Museum fur modern Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
Listen Up Feminist Festival
Ephemeropterae, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
Living Archive Festival, Berlin, Germany
Decolonizing the “Cold” War /Be.Bop, Black Europe Body Politics, Berlin, Germany
Mammying the Archive, RSFS-We Must Have Music, Living Archive Project-Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice, Arsenal Institute For Film and Video Kunst, Berlin, Germany
Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo, The School of the Art Institute Chicago, Chicago IL
2012
Camp/Anti-Camp-VD is SFTD, Kunstlerhaus Mousonturn, Frankfurt, Germany
No One Leaves Delilah: A (W)rap on Race, New York University Performance Studies, New York, NY
Tenderloin-Das Lied Von Der Glocke, Antony’s Meltdown Festival, Royal Festival Hall, Southbanke Centre, London, UK
Wir Haben Kein Zimmer Fuer Auslander, Radical Cross-Currents in Black Berlin, Humboldt Universitat, Berlin, Germany
Communist Bigamist—Two Love Stories, Art Basel, Kaserne Basel Tanz Theatre, Basel, Switzerland
Camp/Anti-Camp-Queer Guide to Everyday Life VD is SFTD, Hebbel Am Ufer/HAU2, Berlin, Germany
Communist Bigamist—Two Love Stories, Forum Freies Theater, Duesseldorf, Germany
My Pussy is Still in Los Angeles (I Only Live in Berlin), West of Rome/Pacific Standard Time Festival, Getty Art Center, Los Angeles, CA
2011
Memory Island, Xperimenta 11: Contemporary Glances at Experimental Cinema, Center de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Framing the Freakazoid, Goldsmith University, London, UK
Art, Music, Sex, Action-Trespass Parade & Festival, West of Rome/Pacific Standard Time, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA
Memory Island-VD Trashes TM, Tate Modern, London, UK
Piss Gottin Hat Angst for unsicherheit, After the Butcher, Made in Berlin Festival, KW/Kunst-werke Institute For Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
Die Untoten Life Sciences & Pulp Fiction Congress & Mise-en-Scene, Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany
The Whoracle et Delphi, Spill Festival Performance Tarot, Barbican Centre, London, UK
When The Curtain Falls, Martin-Gropius Bau Museum, Berlin, Germany
dejecta/protecta, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
2010
VD on EG- Vaginal Davis does Eugenie de Guerin- French Diarist, Staedelschule, Frankfurt, Germany
Re:Akt Re:Construction Re:Enactment Re:porting, curated by Domenico Quranta, Rotovz Exhibition Salon, Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia
Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo, UCLA Queer Arts Conference, Los Angeles, CA
What 80 Million Women Want, Curators Summer School, Kino Arsenal, Berlin, Germany
Tony Montanas Ritt der Walküren, (director, with Senol Sentürk), Hector-Peterson-Oberschule/Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany
Vaginal Davis is Speaking from the Diaphragm, 2009 Ethyl Eichelberger Award Performance, Performance Space 122, New York, NY
Contagious! (film by Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz), Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
Hippo Narcissus, Semiospectacle: A Literary Revue/Columbia University, Performance Space 122, New York, NY
Intermission Green (performance), Forum Expanded, Berlinale: 60th Internationale Filmfestspiele, Berlin, Germany
The Dream of Norma (by Telémacos Alexiou), Forum Expanded, Berlinale: 60th Internationale Filmfestspiele, Berlin, Germany
2009
The Bad Breast, or the Strange Case of Theda Lange, directed by Bruce LaBruce, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany; also at Brut Theater, Vienna, Austria
Personal Counseling - Cooling Down Passion (or: the end of self-improvement); On the Scene of Intimacy. A
Phantasmagoria, (film), Mobile Academy/Excellence Cluster, Languages of Emotion, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
Plattenspieler, with Thomas Meinecke, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
Reparations & Retardations, Performa 09, New York, NY
Memory Island, LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in a Rented World, Berlin, Germany
Frau unter Einfluss, Pheonix Radio: Politik queer-feministischer Räume, Kunsthaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Hippo Narcissus, Kino Arsenal, Curators’ Summer School, Berlin, Germany
Daddy, as part of the Family: Your Nanny Hates You festival, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
The History of Ecstasy (with Ron Athey), Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Naples, Italy
Advance Capitalism Interspecies HooDoo, Girl Monster (curated by Chicks on Speed), Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany
Macho Family Romance, directed by Bruce LaBruce, Neumarkt Theater, Zurich, Switzerland
Flesh for LuLu: Taking the High Road to Sexual Failure, 7th International Contemporary Art Expertos Forum, Arco ‘09 - Feria, Internacional De Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain
Berlin Babylonia Gorgon—Babbling on with Gossip, Song and Dance, Forum Expanded, Berlinale: 59th Internationale Filmfestspiele, Berlin
Fornication No! Theocracy Yes! Conjuring Voice in the Spirit, Politics of Ecstasy, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
Wilhelm Hein’s “You Killed The Underground, or the Real Meaning of Kunst Bleibt, Bleibt (Expanded Cinema Version),” KW/Kunst-werke Institute For Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
2008
The Ginger Concubine, Bistroteque, London, UK
Pink Mass, curated by Stuart Comer, Tate Modern, London, UK
Standing in the Way of Control, Gossip at Columbia Halle, Berlin, Germany
The Arrogance of Youth, Klubszene Jungen Project, Youth at Risk-Kinder und Jugend Theaterfestival, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
Porno Adorno-F*ck Like the F*cking Blacks, Le Palais De Tokyo, Paris, France
CHEAP Blacky, Donau Festival, Stadtsaul, Krems, Austria
You’ll Know What To Do, Raumerweiterrungshalle, Berlin, Germany
CHEAP Max und Moritz, Theater An Der Parkauer, Berlin, Germany
Bilitis-A Feminist State, The Way That We Rhyme, Women, Art & Politics—Yerba Buena Museum & Art Center, San Francisco, CA
Colonize Me, The Way That We Rhyme, Women, Art & Politics—Yerba Buena Museum & Art Center, San Francisco, CA
The CHEAP Uber Alles Outsider Art Awards, CHEAP Gossip Studio Installation, 58th Internationale Filmfestspiele, Forum Expanded Section of the Berlinale Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
You Too Can Be Like Us-Ruth Fischer, Re-Education Festival, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
2007 Sextette - An Erotic Playground, Queer Zagreb Replaying The Balkans Art Festival-Klub Global, Zagreb, Croatia
CHEAP Max und Moritz, Theater an der Parkauer, Berlin, Germany
CHEAP Blacky, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
CHEAP Max und Moritz, Theater an der Parkauer, Berlin, Germany
TB to VD-Revolution Should Taste Like Cum, FM Queer/FM4-WUK, Vienna, Austria
Whoregasm, Porn Film Festival Nachtbar at Lux & Trixter, Berlin, Germany
Blame Canada, Peres Projects, Berlin, Germany
CHEAP Max und Moritz, Theatre an der Parkauer, Berlin, Germany
CHEAP Max und Moritz, Command Performance for the Bundespresident at Schloss Bellvue, Berlin, Germany
VD as VB Erdgeist, Earthspirit #27-29 10827, City of Women Festival Galerie Kapelica/Aksioma Institute of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia
The Madonna of Laibachdorf, City of Women Festival Alcatraz Galerie, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Beware the Holy Retarded Whore, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Woman Under the Influence, Gallery Articule, Montreal, Canada
Lord Love a Duck, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, Montreal, Canada
Si J’Etais Blanche, Simone de Beuvoir Institute, Montreal, Canada
Bilitis - A Feminist State, Womanizer, Deitch Projects, New York, NY
2006
CHEAP Silvester, Ruth Fischer Monsterland, an Interactive Installation, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
That Cold Day in the Park, Alternative Art Fair International, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
CHEAP Nothing’s Going To Stop Me On My Path To Glory, Steirischerherbst Festival Campshow Steirmark, Graz, Austria
Tom Cruise Loves Women, The Women and Tom Cruise, Homo-A-Go-Go Queer Arts Festival, Olympia, WA
Bricktops Takes Manhattan, Siberia, NY
Where Art & Life Collide, Festival of Subcultural Performances, New York University, New York, NY
Tom Cruise Loves Women, The Women and Tom Cruise, Ohio State University, Athens, OH
Weimar, Joe’s Pub, New York, NY
Beware the Holy Retarded Whore, ‘making LOVE queering SEX’ Sager Symposium Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
2005
VD as VB Black & White Women and Men Together Again Forever 483-8070, Roselee Goldberg´s First Biennial of New Visual Art Performances (PERFORMA), Participant Inc., New York, NY
Vaginal Davis Film Retrospectacle, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA
Orifice Descending, New Moves Festival/National Review of Live Art, Glasgow, Scotland
CHEAP Makeover, Poker Im Osten Festival, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
CHEAP It Happened to Me: A Revolutionary Horror Ride, with Vaginal Davis, Poker Im Osten Festival, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
VD as VB Black & White Women and Men Together Again Forever, Platinum Experimental Section/Outfest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Red Cat at Disney Hall, Los Angeles, CA
Beware the Holy Retarded Whore, Theorizing Queer Visualities Conference; University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
The Maladjusted Rule, Queer Up North Festival Contact Theater, Manchester, UK
Orifice Descending, Hayward Gallery, Manchester, UK
Beware the Holy Retarded Whore, Ein Electronic-Cinema Abend, Kino Arsenal/Freunde Der Deutschen Kinemathek Berlin, Germany
VD as VB Guggenheimy Bikini Show, Poker Im Osten Festival, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
CHEAP Silvester Sexual Repulsives Art Bachanalia, Kollective CHEAP with Vaginal Davis featuring performances and installations by Bruce La Bruce, Vaginal Davis, Peaches, Joel Gibb of the Hidden Cameras, Franka Potenta, Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera, Katarzyna Kozyra, Velvet Hammer Burlesque, Max Riemelt, Wilhelm Hein and post political art band Ruth Fischer featuring Ibadette and Michael Halves of Super 700, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2), Berlin, Germany
2002
Pleather-The Dorian Corey Story, Spicy Beef Curtains at the Parlour, Los Angeles, CA
2001
CHEAP Jewelry, Reich und Berühmt Festival, Praeter, Berlin, Germany
Theocracy, Yes! Fornication, No!, Reich und Berühmt Festival, Podevil, Berlin, Germany
The Life of Juanita Castro, Reich und Berühmt Festival, Podevil, Berlin, Germany
Sucking Her Un-born Cock, Reich und Berühmt Festival, Volksbruner, Berlin, Germany
Intimacy & Tomorrow (Stupidity, To-day), C’est Vauxhaul! Festival Duckie, London, UK
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL
The Portland Art Museum, OR