There is a major retrospective of John Waters' visual art that's just opened in his hometown of Baltimore. It's called Indecent Exposure and it pulls pieces from his entire career. In this PBS NewsHour video, we get to see a glimpse of it guided by Waters himself. In the interview that follows, the filth elder himself gives young people some advice on how to look for opportunities to break into the contemporary art world:
"It's a secret biker club that hates you. I even have a piece that says, 'Contemporary Art Hates You.' because it does if you hate it first. It's a thin line. You can't have contempt about it and go in. You have to learn. You have to study a little. You have to figure it out… and suddenly this whole world opens up to you. You can see it in a completely different way. It was like you were blind before."
There's more, watch.
You can catch Waters' exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art until January 6, 2019.
Exhibition highlights include a photographic installation in which Waters explores the absurdities of famous films and a suite of photographs and sculpture that propose humor as a way to humanize dark moments in history from the Kennedy assassination to 9/11. Waters also appropriates and manipulates images of less-than sacred, low-brow cultural references—Elizabeth Taylor's hairstyles, Justin Bieber's preening poses, his own self-portraits—and pictures of individuals brought into the limelight through his films, including his counterculture muse, Divine. Other themes explored include artist's childhood and identity, a satirical consideration of the contemporary art world, and the transgressive power of images.
Also, he kicks off his (fabulous) Christmas show tour on November 29th in San Francisco. I've seen it a couple of times over the years and highly recommend it!
