John Waters at the BMA: ‘Infecting’ people with contemporary art for seven decades

Writer and filmmaker John Waters is sometimes introduced as “the one and only,” but he’s the first to say that’s not accurate. “My father would take difference to ‘one and only,’ because I’m a Junior,” he told Asma Naeem, the interim co-director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, after she introduced him that way this week. The occasion was a press preview for “Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection,” an exhibition of 83 works of contemporary art from Waters’ personal collection. They were culled from a larger group of about 375 works that Waters, a Baltimore native and BMA trustee, has agreed to donate to the museum when he dies. The museum mounted the exhibit, which opens Sunday and runs until April 16, 2023, as a sign of “coming attractions.”