JOHN Waters once said, "To understand bad taste one must have very good taste." And after seeing his place in San Francisco, I would have to say he practices what he preaches. Antique furniture, tapestries and decorative drapery adorn the small but elegant 1920s apartment in Nob Hill. Bookshelves line the walls. Very tasteful art (okay, some not so tasteful) hangs on the walls and fills every nook and cranny. He has to stash the bag of rocks by Paul Lee when the maid comes, so she won't mistake it for rubble. And he has to hide his Richard Baker pill art when his ex-junkie friends visit.

But I'm not here to check out Waters' pad, nor his art collection — I'm here to talk about his art, and his two solo shows with Gagosian in Los Angeles and Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, both happening in April. "Rear Projection" is the title and on the announcement card is a pair of buttocks with a film projected on them. Get it? Waters explained that it's a term for the fake moving scenes behind actors on film sets, mainly when the characters are driving. He's always loved them, and of course, there's the pun. That John!

Known first as an underground filmmaker in the '70s, Waters has been making and showing art since the '90s. And now, he's with the most famous and powerful art dealer in the world — Larry Gagosian. This will be his first show with Gagosian, and he's been with Marianne Boesky for three years. Waters says, "People were incredibly suspicious when I had my first art show." A lot of people, mainly artists, are dubious of celebrities who suddenly come out and say: Oh, you didn't know I paint too? Waters wanted to make sure I knew that his status in the film world did not pave the road for easy access into the art world and that he keeps both worlds very separate.

It was Colin de Land, from American Fine Art gallery, who gave Waters his first show back in 1992. De Land approached Waters and asked him if he made art. It just so happened the filmmaker had an entire body of artwork at the time. He had been photographing film scenes from movies, then pasting them together out of context.

"I could never really have gone as far as I have without Colin de Land," Waters says with heartfelt gratitude. "But because it was at American Fine Art, probably THE most respected cutting-edge gallery — and most of the time there was nothing for sale — it kind of protected me as much as it could from that. So I owe Colin a great, great part of my entrée into the art world."

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