Baltimore Museum of Art to Open JOHN WATERS KIDDIE FLAMINGOS exhibition

BALTIMORE, MD – The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Black Box: John Waters’ Kiddie Flamingos, on view September 21, 2016 through January 22, 2017. For the 2014 video, Waters filmed children reading a G-rated version of the cult classic, Pink Flamingos, and has said this new version is in some ways more perverse than the original. The presentation of the film is organized by Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman and presented in the Black Box Gallery in the museum’s contemporary wing.

Waters’ notorious Pink Flamingos—promoted as an “exercise in bad taste”—premiered in 1972 at the third annual Baltimore Film Festival. The film follows an outrageous competition for the title of “Filthiest People Alive,” which unfolds in a trailer in Phoenix, MD and at other sites throughout Baltimore City. Today, Pink Flamingos is internationally celebrated as a pioneering example of underground filmmaking.

“Wearing disheveled wigs, the Baltimore-based amateur cast of Kiddie Flamingos vividly evokes the performances of Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and the other unforgettably eccentric actors of Waters’ earlier film,” said Kristen Hileman, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. “At the same time, the children display their own sincerity and delight as they make their way through a deeply unconventional narrative.”

Waters’ distinctive voice delivers stage directions off camera while the children earnestly perform their roles. Those who have seen the original film will recognize that, though purged of its obscenity, the new script artfully alludes to the indelible scenes that make Pink Flamingos scandalous to this day.

In fall 2018, Kiddie Flamingos will be featured again at the BMA as part of a major retrospective of Waters’ visual arts career organized by the museum.

General admission to the BMA is free. Special exhibitions may be ticketed. The BMA is open Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. The museum is closed Monday, Tuesday, New Year’s Day, July 4, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The BMA is located at 10 Art Museum Drive, three miles north of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. For general museum information, call 443-573-1700 or visit artbma.org