In theory, the Saturday night Nico tribute WARHOL ICON took place all over the Broad Museum and its courtyard, and circulation was encouraged. But when the museum doors opened at 8:30, performance artists Sheree Rose and Ron Athey, filmmaker Eliane Lima, and 200-plus revelers made a beeline for Oculus Hall and stayed put for the next two hours, worshiping at the altar of Vaginal Davis. (Three hours, if you count the stirring after-set by Kembra Pfahler, a bewigged pile-up out of Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill.)

PhilippeGarrel’s La Cicatrice intérieure/The Inner Scar is a film about circles: fire circles, camera circles, drug circles, circles of anguish, circular time. Starring Garrel’s then-partner Nico (shrouded) and PierreClémenti (nude throughout), the film served as a mesmerizing entr’acte to Parts 1 and 2 of the headliner’s brilliant performance. Some highlights from Davis’ monologue:

“Beware the cautionary tale of taking positions of power you initially fought against.”

“ ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ is Danger Capitalism for ‘Let them eat cake.’ ”

“In Berlin there are backrooms in the organic supermarkets.”

“Good boys are naked boys.”

“You shouldn’t speculate about the future if you can’t speculate about the past.”

“Freud and Lacan had it all wrong. Dildo Theory is different from the Theory of the Phallus. The penis is, and always was, just one of many substitutes for the dildo. And not, I might add, a particularly reliable or attractive one.”

Upcoming Summer Happenings at the Broad include Strange Forest (July 19), Oracle (August 26), and Basquiat (September 23).

thebroad.org/programs

Also see: blog.vaginaldavis.com/

Vaginal Davis at Warhol Icon, Oculus Hall, The Broad, June 24, 2017.

Photographs by Priscilla Mars, courtesy of The Broad.