Vaginal Davis for Katja von Helldorff

Katja work

Katja von Helldorff

Creations in performance, drawing, prints, text, and music, Katja’s work in these assorted mediums combine into organically growing and evolving pieces, such as Leiseylento (A BAZAR MUSICAL under the protection of the GREAT PISSING GODDESS).

Katja von Helldorff is a young feminist artist based in Berlin who is the living embodiment of General Jinjur of the female Army of Revolt my favorite childhood character in the L. Frank Baum book The Marvelous Land of Oz the sequel to the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that led to the 1939 film classic starring Judy Garland.

Katja’s work is filled with joy and whimsy like the Fairyland of Oz and the work of L. Frank Baum and his Oz books series which features characters having magical sex changes and young women forming an army to demand equal rights. At the turn of the last century the Oz books were more popular then the Harry Potter series, and definitely sexier.

-Vaginal Davis

Leiseylento

Vaginal Davis

VAGINAL DAVIS is an originator of the homo-core punk movement and a gender-queer art-music icon. Her concept bands — including Pedro Muriel and Esther, Cholita! The Female Menudo, black fag, and the Afro Sisters — have left an indelible mark on the development of underground music. Like Ron Athey, Ms Davis made her name in LA’s club performance scene, and has earned herself a similar notoriety as a cultural antagonist and erotic provocateur.
Set apart from gallery-centered art, and Hollywood movies, and from those systems’ necessities of high-polish, low-substance production, Vaginal Davis’s low-budget — often no-budget — performance, experimental film and video practice has critiqued exclusionary conceits from the outside. Photo by John Vlautin

Nominator/Nominee