John Waters and Costas Grimaldis at the opening, 1/20/10 (Photo by Elizabeth Suman)

By ELIZABETH SUMAN

In a new photography exhibit at Grimaldis Gallery (his first art show in Baltimore since 2002), John Waters juxtaposes images of the Palace of  Versailles with shots of the Versailles apartment complex in Towson, comparing the real deal in France with its suburban counterpart. Why? One reason, he told the Brew, is because the building makes him laugh.

The exhibit features a smorgasbord of photographs and sculptures Waters began creating as early as 1992, many of which comment on what Waters knows best: film.  A conversation with Waters opens up new layers of meaning in a show that can appear completely random without context.  One piece has a chillingly ironic connection to terrorism. Another elicits what is probably, it’s safe to say, one of the most exuberant and profound soliloquies  ever triggered by the title of an anal porn movie.

Here’s our Q & A. . . . . .

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The little ditch in Curtis Bay has a story to tell — of crime and punishment, of death and rebirth, and of one man’s singular journey, just now coming full circle.

The ditch, in a gritty, urban kind of way, is looking up these days. Sycamores, black locusts and other pioneering species sprout from its banks. A hawk hunts the abandoned industrial landscape it drains.

Its waters, trickling toward Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay are murky, junky; but the vivid, toxic colors of arsenic, chromate and other chemicals that ate away at Steve McAllister’s clothing are long gone.
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