BY JIM PROVENZANO
Fresh off the cha-cha heels of the large-scale exhibit honoring his films at the Los Angeles Academy of Motion Picture Arts Museum in 2023, filmmaker, author and artist John Waters returns to Rena Branson Gallery for his fifth exhibit of unusual and odd art pieces. Get out them cha-cha heels, because Waters will be in attendance at the opening reception September 21.
Subtitled "Works never before exhibited in San Francisco; the rudest the hardest to sell the just plain wrong," the exhibit includes photographic prints, sculptures, and appropriated movie imagery that spark a demented form of joy.
From punishment to traumatic events and a skewering of masculinity, the exhibit even includes a G-rated version of Waters' "Pink Flamingos" acted out by children. Objects d'art take on an absurdist scale reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's alias, R. Mutt.
The oft-entitled Pope of Trash, whose many films include "Pink Flamingos," "Desperate Living," "Hairspray," "Crybaby," and the cult classic "Multiple Maniacs," started collecting art as a child in Baltimore. Waters recently bequeathed his extensive collection of art and archives to the Baltimore Museum of Art with the condition that they name, in his honor, The John Waters Restrooms; all-gender, of course.
While fans of his movies are legion, some may not know that he has exhibited his oddball artwork at museums around the world, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Wexner Center of the Arts in Columbus, and he was even selected as a juror for the Venice Biennale. He's an outsider turned insider, as he said in interview with CBS News.
Waters has also had five books of his photographs and sculptures published since 1997. And he's also a connoisseur of unusual art. In the CBS interview, he said what attracts him is "something that stops me in my tracks, that surprises me."
'John Waters: The Worst of Waters,' at Rena Bransten Gallery, Sept. 21- Nov. 16.
Reception Sept. 21, 5pm-7pm. 1275 Minnesota St., Minnesota Street Project.
www.renabranstengallery.com
