Best known for his groundbreaking movies, like Pink Flamingos, Serial Mom, and Hairspray, John Waters’s trademark acerbic wit shines through in his latest artistic endeavor: a new exhibit, “Indecent Exposure,” featuring more than 160 of his photos, prints, sculptures, audio, and video at the Baltimore Museum of Art, running October 7 to January 9. It is at this institution, in fact, that a young Waters first explored his love of art and bought a $1 Joan Miró print, which is in the collection.
Take, for instance, the Loser Gift Basket—the complete opposite of everything one would see in a luxury Oscar swag bag: a tube of Preparation H, a Yanni CD, cheap drugstore perfume, and a 90-day gift voucher for the Betty Ford Center. “It would be if your movie just bombed—what you send somebody,” Waters, 72, tells AD. “I try to celebrate failure and all the things that can go wrong.”
Humor ties all of his works, whether its movies, performances, books, or photos, Waters says. “I think that is the only way to ever get anyone’s attention and the only way to change someone’s mind is to get them to laugh.“
The show’s themes are varied and timely: plastic surgery, dark periods in American history, and self-portraits from his everyday life, taken in the late 1990s, pre-dating the Instagram era by over a decade. One of the most striking yet comical images in the collection is of Waters himself. Sporting impossibly high cheekbones and magnified lips, Beverly Hills John resembles a ventriloquist dummy, and, he says, the image is “not that far off from some friends I have in L.A.” Pop singer Justin Bieber and beloved TV dog Lassie also get work done in the show.
“I’m celebrating extreme beauty and fashion and what people go through to feel good about themselves,” Waters says. “And some people don’t care because they don’t look old. They look like freaks and some people would rather look bizarre and freakish than look old, and I think that’s a choice.”
The collection takes a serious turn with its examination of two of the darkest periods in American history: the JFK assassination and 9/11. Two side-by-side prints show the movie titles that were scheduled to be screened on the planes that went down that fateful day 17 years ago.
“I’m trying to think of a different way to show tragedy and the most mundane thing about tragedy can be the most sorrowful, in a way,” Waters says.
Grim Reaper pays homage to one of Waters’s aesthetic heroes, Ingmar Bergman. The print features the famous image of John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy stepping off Air Force One in Dallas—followed by the Grim Reaper in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.
“I think I saw my first Bergman movies in Goucher college near where my parents lived, and I loved them right from the beginning and I still love Bergman. It’s really weird when you see a picture and think, they didn’t know they were going to die then. It’s a little bit of freezing something in time when you didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Another artistic inspiration is Andy Warhol. I Am Not features four tabloid-style headline mockups and one real one (“Tom Cruise: I Am Not Gay”) in the same style as the late artist. “Andy was always supportive of [the late star] Divine, too, when Divine was alive. Every artist pays homage to Mr. Warhol,” Waters says.
News commentary is a recurring theme as well for the self-described news junkie who subscribes to half a dozen print newspapers—the actual hard copy. “Where else do you get material? I can’t imagine being a writer and not keeping up with the news,” he says.
One could say that Waters was also among the first Instagrammers. Several prints depict mundane aspects of his life: his dishwasher, freezer, and VHS collection. “Who takes a picture now inside their freezer? To me, I was like a stalker of my own self, but a failed one that found nothing interesting.”
But, perhaps unsurprisingly, fans won’t find Waters on social media. “I’m not that interested in what you had for breakfast. I work 10-to-11 hours a day. I don’t have time to look at that.” Plus, he’s also not one to give away his material for free. “I wouldn’t have any material left. How am I supposed to make a living?”
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