The afterlife of HAG

HAG gallery emerges again, showing the art of Vaginal Davis.

Vaginal Davis: When Lia, the magnificent Lia Gangitano, invited me to do my first solo show in New York at Participant Inc. I decided I wanted to sort of, bring back the HAG, but as a vehicle for my own solo show.

But it’s weird that HAG almost got done at this space in Seattle in the early 90s. What was the name of that space? It was like the equivalent to Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in Los Angeles, but in Seattle. They were going to do the HAG gallery there. I was going to have, this installation of HAG of and… but what happened. Oh, the director, she was pregnant, and she took a leave of absence. And then this guy took over, and he was a big junkie. And him and this other guy is… It’s a long story. So, that didn’t happen in Seattle.

So, it didn’t happen until 2012, when I did the HAG gallery in New York, at Participant Inc. during hurricane Sandy Duncan, and I got caught in the turmoil of that hurricane.

Everyone says, oh, the hurricanes, they never come into Manhattan. They always turn out to sea. That one didn’t. They came, and everything in Downtown was like, there was flooding in Chelsea and flooding of the East Village. But luckily, Lia’s gallery wasn’t flooded, but there was no power, so we couldn’t mount the show.

We had to… I had to stay, and I wound up staying in New York for a long time until power came back on. Of course, whenever I get a solo show, something happens to jinx it. And so, it was the hurricane that came.

And then also… I was doing a conversation “No one leaves Delilah” with the late, great José Muñoz. That got postponed too. But actually, it worked out good because the show was even better. Because people were just gung ho for it when HAG finally did emerge. Also, when I did this conversation with José at NYU at the Performance Studies Department. So, people were just… it was packed to the rafters. Oh my God.