Vaginal Davis: Fabulous Product
Curated by Hendrik Folkerts
Gropius Bau, Berlin
21 March – 14 September 2025

Twenty years after artist, author, and performer Vaginal Davis moved from Los Angeles to Berlin, the Gropius Bau is presenting the first comprehensive solo exhibition of her work in Germany. Her groundbreaking oeuvre combines punk and glamour, queer activism and Black counterculture, as well as resistance and desire.

Vaginal Davis: Fabulous Product offers an overview of the entire spectrum of Ms. Davis’s work: Seven large-scale installations on the ground floor of the Gropius Bau showcase works created between 1985 and 2025, including paintings, video and film works, zines, texts, music, and performances. At the same time, the exhibition highlights Ms. Davis’s numerous artistic collaborations—including with the Berlin art collective CHEAP, which presents the installation Choose Mutation, featuring photographs by Annette Frick , and the New York artist Jonathan Berger.

The video in the installation Choose Mutation. With photographs by Annette Frick combines found and original footage into a dystopian-looking collage. The work addresses paranoia and the effects of social and political control on language and the body. Its title is inspired by the 2020 article “Learning from the Virus” by writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado. The text addresses the political dimensions of disease and immunity. The sound and the objects in the space are accompanied by nine larger-than-life black-and-white photographs by Annette Frick: portraits of CHEAP from some of her earliest projects, including CHEAP Klub.

The art collective CHEAP was founded in Berlin in 2001 by translator Daniel Hendrickson, actress and artist Susanne Sachsse, and film and queer studies scholar Marc Siegel. CHEAP’s work takes the form of performances, videos, festivals, concerts, installations, and radio broadcasts. In each format, their practice connects theory and pleasure, politics and whimsy, aesthetics and sex. The collective frequently collaborates with artists from diverse fields, including Jonathan Berger, Bruce LaBruce, Pola Sieverding, and Xiu Xiu. Miss Davis collaborated with the group early on, initially as a guest, then as a key member of the collective.

Photo by Frank Sperling