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Art Review: John Water's "Change of Life" Bringing out the stalker in every fan, the pervert in every prude. John Waters: Change of Life Gloriously framed behind a sweeping red velvet curtain, John Waters’ film-still photomontage Twelve Assholes and a Dirty Foot, one of seventy-six currently on view at the New Museum in Soho, unabashedly sheds light where the sun don’t shine by presenting a dozen varied, but equally appalling, color film stills of cheeks spread wide – and we’re not talking toothy grins. It should go without saying that the series’ final still of a true-to-title “dirty foot,” a period of sorts for the horizontal utterance of ass, doesn’t quite pack the same punch as its rectal counterparts. Yet the foot is in some ways representative of the “Change of Life” exhibition and Waters’ long-lived, notorious film-making career as a whole; it adds an element of humor to what could otherwise be at least mildly offensive and an air of absurdity to his perplexing visual juxtapositions. Whether systematically clipping the heads out movie images of Sophia Loren (Sophia Loren Decapitated, 1998), arranging cinematic portrayals of Jesus in a blatant, tongue-in-cheek cross formation (Movie Star Jesus, 1966), or hilariously comparing the visual similarities between Charles Manson and tokens of celebrity (Manson Copies Divine’s Hairdo, 1993; Manson Copies Dorothy Malone’s Collar, 1998; Manson Copies Richard Gere, 2000; Manson Copies Brad Pitt, 2003), it is clear that Waters has no beef with irony or trash, and seems rather to prefer their coincidence. Throughout the exhibition of Waters’ self-proclaimed “little movies” – photographic series of overlooked film stills reaped from his and others’ movie footage – vulgarity and quirk abound, showing the strangeness of life through the language of familiar filmic imagery. From these recent photomontages to his cult-favorite flicks (Pecker, Serial Mom, and Broadway-worthy Hairspray) to his earliest, no-budget films (three of which viewers are treated to in the rear of the gallery), his subjects of choice have been consistently shocking: he showcases the awkwardness of social relations, the ubiquity of sex, the paradoxes of fanaticism – and more broadly, vulgarity, celebrity, religion, dysfunction, and general lapses in taste. The collection of his work becomes a carnival of naughtiness, with choice aisles of crap, cleavage, and criminals for us to run rampant down, leaving us wondering why we like it so damn much. Which is, perhaps, precisely the Waters-as-fine-artist’s aim. For he’s not the first to bridge genres and media: the history of artists dabbling in film is rather rich, with figures such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cindy Sherman among the most prominent. And the practice of focusing the camera lens on marginalized members of society, albeit more staidly than does Waters, is equally familiar, and one that has recently brought considerable art-world attention to photographer Diane Arbus. No, the John Waters gallery experience is a unique one not simply for his formal art practice but for his broader concerns with audience and the realms of societal norms. Much less interested in a filthy bottom than in how it makes you feel to look at it, Waters takes the point of his work out of the punch line (being a drag queen, a retard, or twelve assholes) and pulls it into the space between it and you. In his films and photography, he forces us to examine our own preconceptions, allowing us to at last revel in our shock and let loose for this other world that he has created – a world that is, surprisingly, not imagined but appropriated from images of our own culture. Almost more importantly, and at the very least more accessibly, Waters shows a commitment to revealing the comedy of everyday life and its portrayal in the media. In a 1994 interview for Artforum, Waters said, “What I like to show is certainly the humor in all situations – when everything is just so terrible. … I want audiences to laugh at everything they fear.” And laugh they did. Never before have I experienced such a warm and light-hearted gallery atmosphere, in spite of – or because of – the trash-lined room. At one point, I found myself keeping closer tabs on the gallery-goer comments than the art. “John Waters: Change of Life” isn’t a collection of the work of an obsessive, pop-culture madman, as the exhibit’s life-size reproduction of rooms in Waters’ Baltimore house might suggest. It is the work of our own cinematic culture, juxtaposed systematically and quite brilliantly to reveal a shared humanity found in shock and humor. Somehow Waters’ work allows us to be both horrified and satisfied and totally comfortable with both, bringing out the stalker in every fan, the pervert in every prude, and a smile in every art-world elitist. Whether you go to catch the one of the three, never-released films like the obvious favorite Eat Your Makeup (1967), or you go just to get some ass, John Waters at the New Museum is a show not to be missed. Read more articles in Arts » |
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