For the 20 photographic works included in this exhibition Waters culled stills from movies classified as “unwatchable” in reviews. In contrast to earlier, more narrative and modestly sized sequences of images, Waters has enlarged the scale of these works and tightened his focus. The resulting one or two panel compositions use images which would otherwise be consigned to oblivion to generate humorous and satirical digs at subjects ranging from focus group testers (Art Market Testing), to “screeners,” advance copies on DVD of the year’s movies competing for Oscar nominations (Destroy all Screeners), to perceived notions of good taste (Phaedra).

Reckless Eyeballs will also feature 4 sculptural/installation works. They range from Slimy JW, a six foot casting of a joke shop rubber snake representing Waters’ reincarnated self to Sound of a Hit, an actual recording of money changing hands inside the box-office during the opening day of a Hollywood blockbuster hit.

John Waters was born in 1946 in Baltimore. In 2004 his exhibition John Waters: Change of Life premiered at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York and traveled to the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; The Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; and The Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA. He has had numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad and his work is currently included in Dialogues &Attitudes at the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary.

A fully-illustrated 96-page catalogue with an essay by Brenda Richardson is available in conjunction with the exhibition.

Click here for John Waters' biography.
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