From hoo-hah to va-jay-jay to bajingo, there are plenty of euphemisms available for the taboo word “vagina.”
In our society, there is a clear visual and social stigma around vaginas. People typically don’t want to hear about it or talk about it … and they especially don’t want to see it.
Some artists, however, refuse to constrict their creativity with such rules. The following nine artists have sought to challenge social expectations with their bold art featuring the female reproductive system.
Perhaps the most well-known of these artists, O’Keeffe is famous for her paintings of vagina-like flowers. The flowers are sensual and realistic, blurring lines between the erotic and the natural.
A free-lance cartoonist located in Portland, Oregon, Moen uses genitals in her work on her illustrative sex positive blog Oh Joy Sex Toy. Her works include illustrations of both biological and trans women.
Though her most recent work has garned a great deal of attention on Instagram, Stephanie Sarley has been using vaginas in her work for many years. Her work includes a collection of whimsical cartoonish faces placed between women’s legs to simulate a vagina, with titles such as “Crotch Monster” and “Creamed Corn.”
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Rokudenashiko is the pseudonym of Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi, who is most well known for the three-dimensional mapping of her vagina. Her most famous work is perhaps the two-meter kayak she made of out of a print of her vagina. The translation of her statement on her websites says, “My Work Is Against Discriminative / Ignorant Treatment Of The Vagina.”
Comparing genitals to food is the work of photographer Peter Kaaden. His photographic series titled “Zu Nah” (or “too close” in German) is a collection of close up photos of objects and foods that look like vaginas. The series was published in a 2014 Vice issue.
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Carolee Schneemann’s website defines her as a “multidisciplinary artist” who employs performance art, spoken word, writing and painting to break down social taboos surrounding the female reproductive system and sex. Hyperallergic says that in an effort to “explore female sexuality came as a direct response to an apparent disconnect between women’s experiences of their bodies and historical and cultural representations,” Schneemann read a scroll pulled from her vagina in a performance titled “Interior Scroll.”
Judy Chicago put an entire new spin on what it means to eat with her piece “The Dinner Party.”The piece consists of a giant triangular banquet table with 39 unique place settings, each honoring a different important woman throughout history, and 999 names of women are inscribed into the “heritage floor.”
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De Saint Phalle’s absurd and experimental sculptures playe with the politically charged subject of sex. Her piece titled “Hon,” created in 1966 for the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, was a giant reclining “Nana” otherwise known as an archetypal female figure which features a gallery between the entrance of the sculpture’s vagina.
McCartney’s most well-known work is creation of “The Great Wall of Vagina.” The exhibit is an almost 30-feet long painting with plaster casts of 400 vaginas from women aged 18-76. McCartney explains his decision to create this piece, saying, “For many women their genitals appear as a source of anxiety and I was in a unique position to do something about that.”
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