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John Waters on Walker exhibition: "making his own mixtape"

Posted at 12:18 PM on June 27, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Museums, People

John Waters peaks out of one of the works that are included in "Absentee Landlord," an exhibit he curated at Walker Art Center.
MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson

The Sunday New York Times profiled John Waters' exhibition at the Walker Art Center, titled "Absentee Landlord."

In it, Waters argues that this exhibition is just a natural extention of his other work:

Mr. Waters compared his stint as guest curator to making his own mixtape and said it was of a piece with his other work. "Ever since I started collecting art in the late 1980s, it's become another way I tell stories," he said. "I make movies, but I couldn't get a movie made right now with the economy, so I wrote a book," he continued, referring to "Role Models," his 2010 memoir. "In my book I wrote about art. I made the film 'Pecker' in 1998, which is about the contemporary art world -- I think a loving picture of it. It's all one career. I'm telling stories."

You can find out more about just what kind of story it is by listening to Euan Kerr's story: