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JOHN WATERS

RUSH

May 27 - July 10, 2010

click on images for details

PRESS RELEASE

Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to annouce Rush, John Waters' fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

"Rush" is a brand name for a popular nightclub liquid incense whose effects have been described as being "hit by a percussive thunderbolt." The same can be said for the subjects of Waters' photographs and sculptures that are embraced, attacked, and pushed to extremes under his transgressive gaze. Nothing is sacred as Waters rewrites and redirects imagery, culled from both the classic and despised in movie history, initiating these source materials into his own personal genre of shabbily elevated "art films". Child stars are given bad habits, a youthful self-portrait is transformed a la Dorian Gray, and even the beloved and deceased of the silver screen find themselves lined up for one more startling close-up.

Also on exhibit will be a series of photographs taken from the movie set of Pecker, Waters' 1998 film of a young unassuming photographer who takes on the art world and its complicated relationship with celebrity. The wonder of Waters' work is his ability to straddle satire and serious commentary; never once allowing his audience to achieve solid footing in either. Viewers will find themselves privy to Waters' insider show-biz vocabulary and sharing in his excitement at the humiliation and beauty of life inside the film world.

Waters was born in 1946 in Baltimore, MD. His 2009 exhibition Rear Projection was held simultaneously at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. His work has been exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; and the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland. He continues to live and work in Baltimore.