HAG – small, contemporary, haggard

Vaginal Davis on starting HAG gallery in her apartment on Sunset Boulevard.

Vaginal Davis: I lived in an apartment on the Sunset Strip, 7850 Sunset Boulevard, and it was a beautiful apartment building. It was called “La Villa Rosa”. I had these gorgeous walls and the light that came in was fantastic.

And I said: oh, this space would make a great art gallery. I had one of my hair-brained ideas that if I turn my apartment into an art gallery and had openings every six weeks with opening parties and whatnot – that I would meet a quality boyfriend. Because, I always had trouble meeting and connecting with men. So, I thought it was a better way than going to bars and getting drunk.

So, that was the impetus for HAG. I knew nothing about having an art gallery. And even though I did work for a while for a municipal art gallery, Barnsdall Park, when I was a teenager. But I really didn’t know so much about what it would be like to be a gallerist. You know, I had an ulterior motive. It was to try to get a boyfriend or get laid or something to that effect.

And so, I had a lot of friends who were artists and a lot of friends who didn’t really consider themselves artists, but they did very unusual and inventive work. So, then I, you know… that’s where the whole concept of HAG came from, having the HAG gallery – small, contemporary, haggard. And I lived in the space, and then I had a day job at UCLA. The artwork that was shown, it was by appointment only, and I started to have these openings, and the openings became a huge hit.

It was a small space, so people were all crowded in there. I’d get the cheapest beer and big jugs of red and white wine and … of course, I had so many amazing friends who were good cooks. I always… when you drink, you have to have food. And you know, I have friends like, Fertile is a great cook and I have a lot of other… Quasi O’Shea was a good cook. So, there was always food, there was always alcohol, and people would be, …it was small space. So, you couldn’t ignore anyone. So, you had to be friendly because listen: Los Angeles can sometimes be a little bit on the cold side and people can be cliquish. but at my openings, people just dropped all their Los Angeles, barriers and borders, and people were just really open and friendly. And everyone met their significant other at my HAG gallery.

Everybody met somebody except me. The hostess never gets anyone, you know … but all I wound up getting from it was a lot of great press because it was during the time… before people were doing home galleries so much at that time. I’m sure people did home galleries, but you didn’t read about it so much because it became a big thing, more in the 90s.

But in the 80s, it wasn’t so much a big thing. And so, my openings at my HAG gallery …and I didn’t show my own work at HAG. I showed other people’s work, and mainly people who didn’t consider themselves artists.