John Waters | Resume

Born in Baltimore, MD, 1946

Education
Private Grade School
Public Junior High School
Catholic High School

Occupations
Artist, Film Director, Actor, Writer and Producer

Selected One-Person Exhibitions
2004
John Waters: Change of Life, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
John Waters: Last Call, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle

2003
Flop, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Hair in the Gate, Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown
Hair in the Gate, Portfolio Group-Salon Prive, Santa Fe
Hair in the Gate, American Fine Arts, New York

2002
Straight to Video, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Low Definition, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle

2001
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris

2000
Straight to Video, American Fine Arts, Co., New York
Georg Kargl Gallery, Vienna
John Waters, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans
Director' Cut, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris
John Waters: Photographs, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus

1999
Low Definition, Parco Gallery, Tokyo
My Little Movies: Photographic Works, Aeroplastics Contemporary, Brussels
Low Definition, Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown, MA

1998
Low Definition, American Fine Arts, Co., New York
Marks, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York

1997
Director's Cut, Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, Los Angeles
Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans
Galeria Emi Fontana, Milan
Essence d'un sens (Sentir du regard), Passage de Retz, Paris
My Little Movies, Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne

1996
Directors' Cut, American Fine Arts, Co., New York

1995
My Little Movies, American Fine Arts, Co., New York

Group Exhibitions
2003
25th Anniversary Exhibition, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans
Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Gavin Brown Enterprises, New York

2002
Enough About Me, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, organized by Deborah Kass
Hair Stories, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York, Curated by Ruth Marten
Art Downtown: New Photography, 25 Broad St, New York
Something, Anything, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, curated by Nayland Blake
Sans Consentement, CAN-Centre d'Art Neuchatel, Switzerland

2001
Boomerang, (Collector's Choice Series), Exit Art, New York
American Fine Arts, Co. at PHAG
Galeria Marta Cervera, Madrid, Spain
Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Skank, Plus Ultra, Brooklyn

2000
A Two Year Old Girl Choked To Death Today On An Easter Egg, Hallway, London
Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown, MA

1999
Focus, Photographs by Painters, Sculptors and a Filmmaker, Thomas Segal Gallery, Baltimore

1998
Ghost Story, Kunstlerhaus, Vienna
When Worlds Collide, Center for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland, curated by Tanya Leighton
Pop-Surrealism, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT, curated by Richard Klein, Dominique Nahas, Harry Philbrick, and Ingrid Schaffner
Peep Show, Vaknin Schwartz, Atlanta

1997
Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France, Curated by Harald Szeemann
Photo-Op, Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Curated by Charles Desmarais and David Brown
Someone Else With My Fingerprints, David Zwirner, New York, touring Switzerland and Germany through 1998, curated by Wilhelm Schurmann

1996
Summer Group Show, American Fine Arts, Co., New York
Spiral Garden, 1F, Tokyo, Curated by Takayo Iida

1995
Summer Group Show, American Fine Arts, Co., New York

1992
Our Town, Aperture Gallery, New York, Curated by Melissa Harris

Selected Bibliography
The New York Times "Skank," Holland Cotter/ June 1, 2001
The Village Voice Vince Aletti/ December 12, 2000
The New Yorker December 11, 2000
New York Magazine E.N./ December 4, 2000
Time Out New York Anne Wehr/ November 16, 2000
New York Magazine August 21, 2000
The New York Times Ann Wilson Lloyd/ June 13, 1999
Juxtapoz March-April, 1999
Village Voice Vince Aletti/ December 1, 1998
The New Yorker November 11, 1998
ArtNews Ali Subotnick/September 1998
Time Out New York Linda Yablonsky/ July 16-23, 1998
Transcript June 1998
Flash Art Jeff Rian/ October 1997
Parkett "A Conversation with John Waters" Colin deLand, No.49,1997
LA Weekly Peter Frank/ July 11-17, 1997
Los Angeles Times June 27, 1997
Art in America Grady Turner/March 1997
index Interview with Peter Halley and Bob Nickas/ January 1997
The New Yorker December 1996
Time Out New York Howard Halle/ Nov. 28, 1996
Philadelphia City Paper Daisy FriEdition of July 12-18, 1996
Artforum Bruce Hainley/October 1995
The New Yorker May 22, 1995
New York Press May 10, 1995
The Village Voice Vince Aletti/May 9, 1995

PUBLICATIONS
12 Assholes and a Dirty Foot, Little Cockroaches Press 13, Toronto 1999
Director's Cut, Scalo, Zurich 1997


John Waters with his proud parents at the opening of the
musical "Hairspray" in his hometown of Baltimore.
Courtesy of the Baltimore Sun. Photo: Kenneth K. Lam

I'm amazed by bad taste," he says. "It's a freedom I don't have. I was raised to worship good taste."

Waters learned about taste from his upper-middle class conservative Catholic parents in suburban Baltimore. It was a setting he rebelled against, even as a child.

"(My parents) used to drop me off at a beatnik bar downtown because they thought, 'Well, I don't know what else to do with him, and maybe here he will find himself,' and I did," says Waters.