About the Work
In this one-off image, John Waters gives a strong suggestion for how a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might deal with the scores of advanced DVDs sent by movies competing for Oscar nominations. Because the DVDs are heavily encrypted to prevent piracy and members have to sign a binding contract not to share the copies, it’s virtually impossible to throw them away in a safe manner.
John Waters’s wry take on this conundrum underscores his decision to skip the movies the first time around when they were in the theaters. His widely exhibited photography works are made by taking photographs of low-valued movies as a way to reoffer them "in a more optimistic way."
About the Artist
Inspired by B-films and melodramas, John Waters began making films as a teenager, using friends and stolen film stock. His films feature drag queens, drugs, violence, abortion, religion, and depravity, poking fun at their offensiveness while wallowing in it. Later, bigger budget films star Hollywood icons, while still rollicking in poor taste and tackiness.
In the 1990s, Waters started photographing videos on his television, which he edited into “little movies”: various drugstore-processed stills strung together as horizontal filmstrips. These works have been exhibited widely and a traveling exhibition premiered at the New Museum, New York, NY. Waters has authored several journalistic books, a recent memoir, and is an avid art collector. In 2011, he curated an exhibition from the collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.
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