The Wicked Pavilion and the Fantasia Library

Vaginal Davis talks about the literary sources behind The Wicked Pavilion and the Fantasia Library.

Vaginal Davis: Well, yes, but not only authors. It’s also music personalities like Laura Nyro, the great songwriter, singer-songwriter, Laura Nyro. And there are also writers that a lot of people don’t know that much about, like Dawn Powell who wrote The Wicked Pavilion, which is – that’s the name of the installation. That’s where I get the name of the Wicked Pavilion from the writings of Dawn Powell.

So, there’s like a, a lot of different writers, like really the heavyweight writers like Joan Didion, but then there’s like someone also like, Rona Barrett with her, with her book, you know. I like this juxtaposition between high and low arts but making them both on the same level and not this sort of like, this thing about guilty pleasure.

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. That’s also a thing that I share with the CHEAP collective. There’s no guilty pleasure. It’s even something that you find pleasurable and admit to it, that you find it pleasurable. So, mixing singer-songwriters with authors – that became a part of this tribute to books and libraries.

And I worked with Cris Cole. He had brought me, he and the student group had brought me, to Hampshire College back in, I guess it was like 2008 or 2009. And he had worked at the Guggenheim and The Museum of Modern Art, at the bookstore. And he also worked for Strand in the Rare Books collection. So, we collaborated sourcing a lot of first editions and whatnot of these books, to add into the installation The Wicked Pavilion.

But the Fantasia aspect of it, that’s a separate part, because that’s sort of books that, and titles of books that, I started to write but never quite finished, or ideas for books. And that’s like… it turned into five hundred titles painted pink. And then of course paintings of authors and musicians and writers and poets and, you know, all women who have inspired me, who I look up to because let’s face it: my world is that of a feminine world.

It’s a very feminine derived world, feminine headed world. And that’s where I get inspiration from, from those goddesses, the mighty goddesses I get my inspiration from. Because I come from a long line of goddess worship and witchy poos, my mother Mary Magdalene DuPlantier being the main one, of course. My sisters too.

So, it all ties together. And it comes together quite nicely with The Wicked Pavilion, all these elements with The Wicked Pavilion.