John Waters – Change of Life

John Waters achieved the status of cult filmmaker with his fifteen films, and particularly with Mondo Trasho (1969), Pink Flamingos (1972), Polyester (1981) and Hairspray (1988), thereby defining for a generation that “trash” is part of our culture. “John Waters is the pope of trash”, wrote William Burroughs. At the beginning of the 1990s, he turned to photography, watching videotapes of films that fascinated him – Cleopatra or Baby Doll for example – and taking photographs of these films directly from the video monitor. These media image elements were the raw material from which John Waters created new short films by editing and pasting: Director’s Cut was the name he gave to both the procedure and the book.

Fotomuseum Winterthur presented the first comprehensive exhibition of these photographic sequences. Selected objects, script books, cabaret scenes and advertising material for films bear witness to John Waters’ fascination with photographic images and the mass media. The exhibition also contained his early and previously unpublished no-budget films Hag in a Black Leather Jacket (1964), Roman Candles (1966) and Eat Your Make-up (1968).

The exhibition was curated by Marvin Heiferman and Lisa Phillips. Realisation in Winterthur: Urs Stahel. A collaboration with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.

Main sponsor: Ars Rhenia Foundation