Outfest

Photo by Brendan MullenWearing nothing more than some strategically placed silver duct tape, DR. VAGINAL DAVIS welcomed voyeurs, swingers, freaks, humpy dorks and “sexual repulsives” to PLATINUM OASIS, an 18-hour performance-art extravaganza, co-curated with RON ATHEY for OUTFEST. Reeking of poppers, Crisco and cheap air freshener, the two-story CORAL SANDS MOTEL was the site for Outfest’s first performance-art program, and what a spectacularly ambitious debut it was: 40 rooms of multimedia art, installations and poolside performances — plus a whoop-it-up licentiousness that would have done Caligula proud. In fact, the Oasis brought together an assortment of art tarts, ex-cons, leather daddies, college students, ravers, bohos, and even a tourist or two who normally don’t rub shoulders, never mind other body parts (some who took advantage of the “playrooms” questioned why no condoms were available). The early performance cycle featured a bathing-suit-clad ABBY TRAVIS, sporting a Carmen Miranda–esque headdress, making marvelous music accompanied by former Mump KRISTIAN HOFFMAN; Epilady SELENE LUNAwarbling a charming boop-boop-dee-doop number; and ANN MAGNUSON skewering Industry casting decisions with a hilarious replay of her big-screen audition for the role of Eminem’s mother in a biopic. Go Fish actress GUINevere TURNER and gal pal PORTIA DE ROSSI (of Ally McBeal) were spied eating cake in JENNIFER DOYLE’s “Cakes and Kisses” installation before getting their picture taken in the “Porno Polaroid” room (which, as clothes came off and inhibitions diminished, proved so popular that it’s a wonder the balcony didn’t collapse). Spied upstairs was actor JOHN FLECK applauding boyfriend RYAN HILL’s performance in CAROL “Perpetua” CETRONE’s slyly choreographed 007-themed dance romp. Model/actress JENNY SHIMIZU was seen not having 3-inch dragon-lady claws applied in DIVINITY FUDGE’s “Funky Nail Salon,” just down the hall from the bondage room, where a blindfolded, naked woman was strapped to a gurney for hours. Among those admiring BRUCE LaBRUCE’s digital snuff-film installation were Red Hot Chili Pepper FLEA, Tribe 8’s LESLIE MAH and Honcho magazine’s DOUG McCLEMONT. Outside “The Slammer” room, leather-clad “guards” shooed the curious away from youthful offenders who exposed themselves and waved cheerily to passersby. The solitary nude onanist in the “Topping the Bottom” room was later joined by a couple of hard-bodied pals for some three-way sex play, easily viewed from the open window. Voyeurs of all genders staked out the room where THE VELVET HAMMER gals (pictured) primped in a continually shifting state of semi-undress. In another room, body-modification/blood artist FRANKO B. exhibited Old World hospitality, offering guests wine, cheese, salami and bread, while inviting the curious to browse his photography books and watch his videos. The young-at-heart volunteered for diapering and spanking in the Day-Glo infantilism-themed room (complete with Plushies), while downstairs screams of pleasure and pain emanated from the Tekken Torture Tournament installation, created by C-LEVEL.CCcomputer lab (of which CYRIL KUHN, pictured with Vaginal Davis, is a member), where video-game players hooked up to electrodes received punishment for low scores. “The Girls’ Playroom” — complete with an ever-growing army of “Catholic schoolgirls” playing with Barbies — became a magnet for straight boys, much to the chagrin of its hostess, PANDORA YOUNG. The all-black sensory-deprivation room was another crowd pleaser, despite its soaring temperature. Moving in and out of the well-orchestrated bacchanalian revelry were directors GUS VAN SANT, ROSE TROCHE and LARRY CLARK with actress TIFFANY LIMOS, writer-directors Clive Barker and CHERYL DUNYE, designer RICK OWENS, photogs JACK PEARSONand BRUCE WEBER, writer RUBÉN MARTINEZ, casting director ROZ MUSIC, ROBERT “El Vez” LOPEZ, party girls PARIS and NICKY HILTON, and actors JUAN FERNANDEZ with TAD COUGHENOUR, CHLÖE SEVIGNY, Dennis Christopher, VIN DIESELwith MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ, BIJOU PHILLIPSwith musician SEAN LENNON, and BALTHAZAR GETTY. The festive mood carried out into the central courtyard, where the adventurous stripped down to join the pansexual orgy in the Jacuzzi (by dawn, a HazMat suit was necessary to venture into the hot tub). After midnight the performances continued with movement duo OSSEUS LABRYNT(pictured) getting wet ’n’ wild in the pool. (In the wee, wee hours, two naked audience members needed to be dissuaded from jumping off the second-floor balcony into the water.) Another crowd fave was KEMBRA PFAHLER’s “Wall of Vagina,” a performance featuring yogurt, a turkey baster and a cast of naked women from THE VOLUPTUOUS HORROR OF KAREN BLACK(pictured), who belted out a rip-roarin’ version of “Kansas City” before forming the wall. Not to be left out of the festivities — in spite of being nixed by Outfest bureaucrats as a last-minute official participant — was artist KENNY SCHARF, who just happened to be driving by in his psychedelic Winnebago when it conveniently broke down steps from the Coral Sands, where it became an impromptu lounge for the likes of artists DAVID HOCKNEY and DAMIEN HIRST. When the sun came up, only a few daring souls were left standing for the dip-in-the-Jacuzzi baptisms (perhaps just as well). Most the sinners were jolted awake by the glossolaliac yodeling of ST. SELICIA TATE, accompanied by THE ACRES’ gospel truth. Nothing says time to check out like a possessed saint braying in tongues.

—Sandra Ross