Recognizing an artist with more than a decade’s worth of exhibition history whose latest exhibition comes at a pivotal moment in their career.

Vaginal Davis
for “Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product” at MoMA PS1, New York (October 9, 2025–March 2, 2026, US debut, following versions at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and Gropius Bau, Berlin)

Often described as an icon of Los Angeles’s queer and punk scenes, Vaginal Davis has made art that often wasn’t meant for display in museums or galleries. At the core of her practice, spanning performances, zines, videos, installations, and more, is her artistic persona, which imbues her art with ribald, tongue-in-cheek humor, even as she discusses serious topics like race and identity, gender and queerness. Often, her art is designed to shock viewers and make them squirm. In doing so, Davis asks why her pieces would make anyone uncomfortable. “I have never cared for entertaining anyone. My performances may have elements that some may find entertaining, but that’s not my main purpose,” she once told Interview magazine.