'John Waters, Baltimore’s self-proclaimed “Pope of Trash,” announced Wednesday that he’s bequeathing some of the most precious things he owns — approximately 375 prints, paintings and photographs — to the Baltimore Museum of Art.

'In a show of appreciation, museum officials will rename two bathrooms in the East Lobby “The John Waters Restrooms” in honor of the cult filmmaker and visual artist. The domed room in the European art galleries also will be christened “The John Waters Rotunda.”

'Waters sees the gesture as similar to the impulse that resulted in “Fountain,” Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1917 sculpture of a urinal.

'“Renaming the bathrooms was my idea right from the beginning,” he said. “They thought I was kidding and I said, ‘No, I’m serious.' It’s in the spirit of the artwork I collect, which has a sense of humor and is confrontational and minimalist and which makes people crazy.”'

Excerpt of an article by Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun, November 11, 2020