Edited by Hendrik Folkerts. Text by Lia Gangitano, Elisabeth Lebovici, Jennifer Doyle, Darby English, Sheldon Gooch, Tavia Nyong’o, Frank Rodriguez, Angela Seo, Marc Siegel, Jamie Stewart, Lisa Teasley, Julie Tolentino, Wu Tsang, et al.
Welcome to the wondrous world of Vaginal Davis: visual artist, punk rocker, "drag terrorist" and genderqueer icon
Published with Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
In Vaginal Davis' pioneering and incredibly diverse oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets racial justice and resistance meets joy. An icon of contemporary queer history, Vaginal Davis has made scenes for a living: through personas as diverse and outrageous as Rayvn Cymone McFarlane or John Dean Egg III, and as a part of bands including Cholita! The Female Menudo and the Afro Sisters. Since then, she has achieved cult status as a self-proclaimed "sexual repulsive" and a "drag terrorist"—shattering notions of mainstream conformity and the sanitization of Black, queer and Chicano cultures for appropriation by white audiences. An uproarious celebration of Davis' work and cultural legacy, this bilingual English/Swedish catalog is Z-bound (English on one side, Swedish on the other) and takes readers on a whirlwind tour across the artist's protean output spanning music, performance, installations, lectures and visual art: from her early punk shows to her recent "fantasy library" imagined as a teenager's bedroom. A final section, "Dear Ms. Davis," includes heartfelt tributes to the artist from fellow "colleagues, concubines and coconspirators." Vaginal Davis was born intersex in Los Angeles to parents of Black Creole, Mexican, Jewish and German descent. Naming herself after radical Black feminist Angela Davis, she emerged in the queer punk scenes of Bushwick and Los Angeles in the 1980s before moving to Berlin in the early 2000s.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times
Holland Cotter
There's no 2025 exhibition I’m more looking forward to.
The New York Times
Ben Miller
Throughout an enormously varied career, Davis, 64, has maintained subcultural integrity, generosity in collaboration and an exploratory spirit. That includes roles in her bands (in which she has performed in character as an Afro-wearing Black Power activist, a tween Latina and a white supremacist militiaman), her fine art production (including videos, paintings made with makeup and installations featuring enormous papier-mâché dildos), drag performances, zines, a blog and more.
Artforum
Julius Pristauz
This carefully curated retrospective was a testament to the insurgent power of collaboration, queer joy, and radical expression amid a global political shift toward heightened repression.
Art in America | Reframed
McKenzie Wark
The exhibition is more a prospective than a retrospective. It’s a show that gathers everything Vaginal in one giant handbag, for the most epic carry forward.
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FORMAT: Pbk, 8.75 x 11 in. / 312 pgs / 100 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $64 ISBN: 9783753306438 PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln AVAILABLE: 11/11/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Hendrik Folkerts. Text by Lia Gangitano, Elisabeth Lebovici, Jennifer Doyle, Darby English, Sheldon Gooch, Tavia Nyong’o, Frank Rodriguez, Angela Seo, Marc Siegel, Jamie Stewart, Lisa Teasley, Julie Tolentino, Wu Tsang, et al.
Welcome to the wondrous world of Vaginal Davis: visual artist, punk rocker, "drag terrorist" and genderqueer icon
Published with Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
In Vaginal Davis' pioneering and incredibly diverse oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets racial justice and resistance meets joy. An icon of contemporary queer history, Vaginal Davis has made scenes for a living: through personas as diverse and outrageous as Rayvn Cymone McFarlane or John Dean Egg III, and as a part of bands including Cholita! The Female Menudo and the Afro Sisters. Since then, she has achieved cult status as a self-proclaimed "sexual repulsive" and a "drag terrorist"—shattering notions of mainstream conformity and the sanitization of Black, queer and Chicano cultures for appropriation by white audiences.
An uproarious celebration of Davis' work and cultural legacy, this bilingual English/Swedish catalog is Z-bound (English on one side, Swedish on the other) and takes readers on a whirlwind tour across the artist's protean output spanning music, performance, installations, lectures and visual art: from her early punk shows to her recent "fantasy library" imagined as a teenager's bedroom. A final section, "Dear Ms. Davis," includes heartfelt tributes to the artist from fellow "colleagues, concubines and coconspirators."
Vaginal Davis was born intersex in Los Angeles to parents of Black Creole, Mexican, Jewish and German descent. Naming herself after radical Black feminist Angela Davis, she emerged in the queer punk scenes of Bushwick and Los Angeles in the 1980s before moving to Berlin in the early 2000s.
