Still life with Pecker filmmaker John Waters.

By Matt Spangler

Just when you thought John Waters might be losing his edge – now that his 1987 mainstream breakthrough Hairspray is a smash hit on Broadway – Charm City’s favorite son is stirring things up again with a deliciously post-modern photography exhibit.

Recently the tall, wiry director of such underground classics as Pink Flamingoes and Multiple Maniacs mingled with a crowd of trendy sophisticates gathered at C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore for the opening of “Straight to Video.” It was ironic that the man who had skewered the peacockish art world with savage glee in Pecker was now dishing out hugs and air-kisses.

For whatever reason, Waters won’t talk about what camera he uses or whether he does his own printing. But when asked to describe his technique for the 25 mostly chromogenic prints adorning the white walls at Grimaldis he unabashedly says, “I just take them off the television.” (One can’t help recall Jon Routson’s recent show at MOCA, whose clandestine video camera transformed Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster” cycle into a primetime ABC broadcast.)

Waters defends his appropriation of images from the films of Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Otto Preminger, William Castle, and others as “parody,” and while what precisely they burlesque remains a mystery, one can’t deny the downright genius pervading the collection amassed over 10 years. The works read like a catalog of Waters’ obsessions from the time he was a teen watching pornos at the local drive-in through binoculars to the no-holds-barred American Dadaist ridiculing segregation and mainstream Hollywood with equal abandon.

“Tingler” is a chromogenic sequence from The Tingler, the 1958 B-movie classic from William Castle, who famously rigged auditorium seats with joy buzzers, which would become the “Odorama” gimmick Waters used for 1981's Polyester. There are a couple of series revealing his fascination with kitschy Americana: the game-show-style letters “Monday” smeared across a violet curtain, and the triptych formed by two shots of frowzy and plump “Mr. Ray” and his eponymous hair weave center. And isn’t that a montage of his leading...er, never mind...“the terrorist drag queen,” Divine, seemingly locked in a state of eternal regurgitation? Indeed, Waters compared the work at least twice to “editing,” and the man who made an 8mm short called Hag in a Black Leather Jacket at the age of 20 hasn’t lost sight of the fact that motion pictures are essentially 24 stills projected on a screen every second.

The real showstopper, however, is “Liz Taylor’s Hair and Feet,” in which the beauty queen’s extremities are divided in two: one a 39 1/4" x 49 1/4" chromogenic print, comprising a large white square bordered by 28 views of Taylor’s flips and chignons, the other a 5 1/8" x 49 1/4" strip featuring seven shots of Taylor’s alternately bare and shoed feet.

Aside from the obviously fetishistic value the subject must have had for Waters, it neatly sums up his thesis that video images are blank canvases from which wholly new work can be generated.

“I always say it’s like normal people are depressed because they’re not in show business,” Waters quipped about his preoccupations at the opening. The point – not lost on this stargazing reviewer -- summed up a lifetime of viewing the celebrity establishment from a comfortably radical distance.

“Straight to Video” will be on display at

through December 1.

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Matt Spangler is in a “transitional” phase in his life, as they like to say in Washington when you’ve just been right-sized. He’s seeking gainful employment as a writer, documentary filmmaker, photographer, or telecommunications executive. His work as a photographer can be seen at Gallery West in Old Town Alexandria.