The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) may have just redefined binge watching. On Friday and Saturday, November 9 and 10 they are hosting a John Waters feature film marathon. Here’s everything you need to know.
The marathon is an enhancement to the BMA’s retrospective, John Waters: Indecent Exposure, and runs an astonishing 18 hours—from 7 p.m. on Friday evening until 3:30 p.m. the following Saturday afternoon. The event is punctuated by film chats and the audience will be supported by a cash bar and snacks and concessions available for purchase. And, prizes! Because 18 hours of film-watching is truly an endurance sport, the event will culminate with prizes given to all those who complete the entire marathon.
Here’s the key information from BMA:
You can expand your John Waters: Indecent Exposure experience with 18 hours of John Waters films showcasing his diverse artistic output from Multiple Maniacs to A Dirty Shame.
Note that a Single Entry Ticket ($10 or $8 for BMA members) admits one person to a double feature selected at checkout. A Multiple Entry Ticket ($20 or $15 for BMA members admits one person to all screenings.
Double Feature 1, 7-10:30 p.m.
- Introductory short talk on Waters’ works with Jed Dietz, Founding Director of the Maryland Film Festival
- Cash bar with R Bar, featuring John Waters-inspired cocktails, light fare concessions, access to John Waters: Indecent Exposure
- Multiple Maniacs, 1970, run time: 1h 31 min
- Pink Flamingos, 1972, run time: 1h 33 min
- Film chat with Bret McCabe
Double Feature 2, 11 p.m.-2:30 a.m.
- Cash bar with R Bar, featuring John Waters-inspired cocktails and light fare concessions
- Female Trouble, 1974, run time: 1h 29 min
- Desperate Living, 1977, run time: 1h 30 min
Double Feature 3, 2:30-5:30 a.m.
- Polyester, 1981, run time: 1h 26 min
- Hairspray, 1988, run time: 1h 32 min
- Film chat and concessions featuring John Waters-inspired donuts from Full Circle Artisan Palace
Double Feature 4, 6-9 a.m.
- Cry-Baby, 1990, run time: 1h 25 min
- Serial Mom, 1994, run time: 1h 35 min
- Film chat and concessions featuring John Waters-inspired donuts from Full Circle Artisan Palace
Double Feature 5, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
- Pecker, 1998, run time: 1h 27 min
- Cecil B. Demented, 2000, run time: 1h 27 min
- Film chat
Double Feature 6, 1-3:30 p.m.
- A Dirty Shame, 2004, run time: 1h 29 min
- Closing Reception with access to John Waters: Indecent Exposure
About the exhibit:
John Waters: Indecent Exposure, October 7, 2018—January 6, 2019, is the first retrospective of John Waters’s visual arts career in his hometown of Baltimore. It presents more than 160 provocative photographs, sculptures, and video and sound works. The exhibition concludes with a gallery devoted to ephemera, including objects from Waters’s home and studio that inspire him, and three peep-shows featuring footage from his rarely seen underground movies of the 1960s.
Waters’s renegade humor deployed through his works reveals the ways that mass media and celebrity embody cultural attitudes, moral codes, and shared tragedy. Exhibition highlights include a photographic installation in which Waters explores the absurdities of famous films and a suite of photographs and sculpture that propose humor as a way to humanize dark moments in history from the Kennedy assassination to 9/11. Waters also appropriates and manipulates images of less-than sacred, low-brow cultural references—Elizabeth Taylor’s hairstyles, Justin Bieber’s preening poses, his own self-portraits—and pictures of individuals brought into the limelight through his films, including his counterculture muse, Divine. Other themes explored include artist’s childhood and identity, a satirical consideration of the contemporary art world, and the transgressive power of images.
The Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218-3898
Telephone: (443) 573-1700 TDD: (410) 396-4930