Who showed at HAG?

HAG became the scene for many shows, performances and film screenings.

Vaginal Davis: Oh my God. So many people. I showed Alice Bag. My first show at HAG gallery was Drew Barrymore’s father, who was my next-door neighbour, John Drew Barrymore, who was an alcoholic druggie. He lived with all these crazy, nutty death rockers who were kind of taking advantage of him. And he made these weird sort of assemblage-like things with, hypodermic needles and cockroaches because the building had so many cockroaches.

Oh my God. Horrible. These cockroaches. And I slept on them. I didn’t even have a bed. I slept directly on the floor with cockroaches crawling all over me. I remember the first time that Bruce LaBruce came to stay with me, and he was appalled. He says “Miss Davis lives in pure filth”. And it’s true. I did. I more or less lived in pure filth.

I had… Gorilla Rose did something. What’s his name? This beautiful… He was so beautiful back then, Charles LeDray. He was friends with Doug Gordon. And he was from… Charles was either from Idaho or Montana. I can’t remember which one of those white supremacist states. And he was this beautiful, hunky, redheaded dude with an incredible body. These muscles that just like… And his muscles, just like the way they moved in his clothing. And I remember he made these… He would find these old, abandoned, or discarded toilets, and he would make these cute little, tiny, tiny sculptures from toilets.

And so, he made a series of very small little sculptures. And then he did a performance at the opening. And his performance was: he was butt naked and he just kept doing backflips in this small, tiny space. Butt naked with this big thick penis of his bouncing, and the muscles all bouncing up and down, you know, and with his big, thick, manly hands and thick, gnarly feet. People were riveted because he was just such a beautiful boy with his peaches and cream complexion.

These beautiful lips, these gorgeous eyes, this red hair. And people were like: Ms. Davis who is this boy? And he’s just like, doing backflips. Oh, almost falling into people. That was the performance. It was genius, you know? And so, who else performed… Oh, Fertile, Fertile had a show. Quasi O’Shea had a show.

Gomorrah Wednesday aka Keith Holland of my record label Amoeba records had a show. He had this one painting that people loved. It was called “Audrey Hepburn Running Through Hell”. Who else had a show… I featured video nights where I showed the people from Atlanta. That whole Atlanta scene that produced Lady Bunny, Larry T, RuPaul, the Funtone Records people. Also, the New Lavender Panthers of Jimmy Jones, Caroline Azar of Fifth Column, La Bruce, Bruce LaBruce, Candyland productions. I would show their films, like little film nights. it was a, it was a melange. It was a complete, fascinating melange of people.

I remember I had a screening party, and RuPaul came to that, you know, early RuPaul. There were just so many people. And one of my mentors, Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers. God, the HAG Gallery. Mari Kono – she had a show there. Wagner Vieira, who was sort of the Brazilian David Wojnarowicz – he did a lot of the – he designed the sets for The Afro Sisters’ performances. There was a very famous performance that we did at the Olio Theatre in Silverlake, Fertile’s last dance, which was based on Oscar Wilde’s Salome. And Wagner was so tired. He died of Aids.

Oh, it was a horror show. It was really, really a horror show. But, you know, the HAG gallery had some really interesting openings and parties and so many interesting people there and so many people, you know, meeting each other. The only person who just didn’t benefit from that aspect of the HAG gallery – it was me. But that’s the story of my life.