John Waters: Change of Life

by Lisa Phillips, John Waters, New Museum Of Contemporary Art (Contributor)

"During the past forty years, film director John Waters - once crowned "The Pope of Trash" by William Burroughs and now hailed as the genius behind Broadway's smash-hit musical Hairspray - has moved from the margins of culture to the mainstream. Ever subversive and happy to raise the issues that polite society works hard to suppress, Waters has helped to liberate us from social restrictions and norms. In that process, he has created hilarious and provocative filmed entertainment. And since he picked up a still camera more than ten years ago, he has reinvented himself as a visual artist." "Scrutinizing videotapes of over-the-top Hollywood movies and forgotten art films that had long obsessed, amused, and fascinated him, Waters started to photograph video stills off his television screen. The moments that he captured became the raw material for artworks that Waters began to call his "little movies." In these photographic sequences, Waters continues to skewer cultural symbols and stereotypes, and to elaborate on the cultural and subcultural themes that have been central to all his work: race, sex, sanctimony, glamour, class, family politics, celebrity, religion, the media, and the allure of crime." "John Waters : Change of Life, published on the occasion of Waters's first major exhibition, presents a survey of his still photographic works and stills from his earliest and seldom seen no-budget films: Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Roman Candles, and Eat Your Makeup. The book also includes images of objects from Water's personal collection that reflect his ongoing fascination with photographic imagery, the mass media, and some of the more outrageous expressions of American popular culture." Accompanying these artworks, film stills, and quirky images are contributions by cultural and art historians that zero in on Waters's cinematic mind and photographic eye, and on surprising artworks that speak for themselves in more subtle and complex ways than might ever be expec

Genres: Nonfiction

142 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sean Kottke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This exhibition catalog repeats several of the "little movies" featured in "Directors Cut" and does them one better. It includes newer pieces, sculptures, "contextual ephemera" (i.e., an assortment of items from John Waters' personal possessions illustrating his many obsessions), extensive commentary on most of the pieces as well as Waters' films, and an interview with Waters conducted by Todd Solondz. While "Directors Cut" presented larger format reproductions of photo sequences across several pages, this volume keeps as many of them as possible on single pages or two page spreads so that the whole sequence can be appreciated at once.

[Kayleigh Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obsessed with him

[Juno Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love John Waters, love John Waters, ever so great bard of Baltimore. Saw him live last winter. Not exactly a review . . . just an emoting. The man lived his life entirely as he wanted to and I admire that. As for the contents, coolest stuff I've seen since the Kenneth Anger exhibit at PS 14 in NYC a couple summers ago.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Waters the filmmaker, John Waters the writer, now John Waters the artist.

[Erin Tuzuner · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Waters as an artist.