Vaginal Davis is a performing artist, painter, curator, composer, filmmaker and writer, known for her queercore punk persona. She wore “black face” for this portrait session, and I’ll never forget the profound effect her oft-repeated phrase “Let me just beat on my face” had on me that day. The appropriation of black makeup, and all that entails, is just one of many ways she so deftly disrupts the politics of problematic cultural imagery. Even as I took the photo I was assessing my own discomfort with her decision.