I could sit in an airport and make up biographies of every person as they walk off a plane. I am inspired every time I walk out of the house. I would begin by asking the question, ‘Can art be good and funny?’ It can always be witty, but can it be funny? When I was 12 and 13, I wanted to be a beatnik artist so I made sculptures that ripped off Edward Kienholz assemblages and Marisol.Ģ. What is the first piece of art you ever created? Here, Another Man directs 50 questions to this countercultural icon the Pope of Trash and the Baron of Bad Tasteġ. Over the years, Waters has transformed what began as a vaudeville skit into a perfectly honed monologue, tailored to the time and place of his performance – while maintaining his fascination with true crime, fashion gone wild, art world extremism, and exploitation films in a joyous celebration of trashy goodness. Waters brings this same spirit to the spoken word, a practice that he began in the late 1960s when he and Divine first began showing films at colleges.
The low tech, catch-as-you-can photography that I do is failed photographing in the beginning of fine art photography.” In the art world, I make mistakes as I learn. “In the movie world it has to be in focus, you have to hit your mark, it has to be lit well, which is what I want. “What works best in the art world is sometimes what works the opposite of perfect in the movie world,” Waters reveals. With 16 films and eight books under his belt, Waters brings his love for writing and editing to the visual realm and discovered that the “perfect moments” are often accidental and failed.
Here, sacred cows are led to the slaughter, tenderised, and barbecued by a loving heart that embraces the absurd in every element of the work. Indecent Exposure features more than 160 photographs, sculptures, soundworks, and video made since the 1990s around themes including pop culture, the movie business, childhood and identity, self-portraits, sex and transgression, and contemporary art. At 72, the Pope of Trash continues to storm the world with Indecent Exposure, his first art retrospective opening October 7 at the Baltimore Museum of Art in America and, on this side of the pond, with This Filthy World, his one-man show headlining Homotopia at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on November 10. John Waters is a master of paradox, bridging the divide between seeming opposition with love, wit, and nerve.
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