John Waters: The Worst of Waters | Works Never Before Exhibited in San Francisco | The Rudest, The Hardest to Sell, The Just Plain Wrong

Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present The Worst of Waters, our fifth solo exhibition with John Waters, who we have represented in San Francisco since 2002.

A hit parade of hell, Waters’ photographic prints and sculptures use appropriated movie imagery that both mocks and embraces the extremes of the art world and show business all in one whoop of demented joy. Failed masculinity, anal trauma, Catholic rebellion, critical revenge, capital punishment, even children acting out a G-rated video version of the X-rated film “Pink Flamingos”.   It’s all here, on the walls, on the floor like leftover storyboards and damaged movie props abandoned by a B-list publicist who fled the industry.  Waters considers this a group exhibition with only one artist: himself.

Artist bio:

John Waters’ artwork has been shown in galleries and museums all over the world, starting with Colin de Land’s American Fine Arts, Co. in 1992.  He’s had solo museum exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, among others.  In 2011, John Waters was selected as a juror for the Venice Biennale.

Five books have been published on John Waters’ photographs and sculptures:  Director’s Cut  997 (Scalo Books); John Waters: Change of Life 2004 (Harry N. Abram);  Unwatchable 2006 (Marianne Boesky Gallery and de Pury & Luxembourg); John Waters – How Much Can You Take? 2015 (Scheidegger & Spiess); and Indecent Exposure 2018 (University of California Press).

John Waters’ artwork is in the permanent collection of several museums including the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.