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- ZACHARY QUINTO
August 17, 2007
Who doesn’t love a good celebrity scandal?
Celebrity mug shots are a fascinating thing. Browsing through pictures of stars that you’d normally see stalking the catwalk, not the prison cell shows that they really are Hollywood’s Most Wanted.
Police mug shots are a darkly humorous and slightly upsetting take on celebrity portraiture, easily accessible online at sites like TMZ.com and TheSmokingGun.com. It’s a tense and mesmerising combination of gloss and grit, but the dual-edged sword of celebrity is no mystery – we’ve seen it personified by Britney, Lindsay and even Paris (twice).
Using mug shots of entertainment figures released by law enforcement, German-raised Los Angeles artist Rachel Schmeidler gives them star treatment. She restores the fallen stars to a vision of glamour through a combination of digital imaging technology and old fashioned silk screening.
What is it about the celebrity mugshot that transfixes us? Is it shadenfraude: taking pleasure in seeing the untouchable aura of celebrity shattered? Why do we delight in seeing the ivory tower crumble, the pedestal tumble and the stars fall?
“Our fascination with celebrity is a symptom of a larger cultural obsession with wealth, attractiveness and achievement. Celebrities seem to embody all of these, and therefore are easily idolised,” artist Rachel Schmeidler said, whose exhibition ‘Hollywood Most Wanted’ is currently touring California.
“We, as a culture - like many generations before us - seem to need idols. Celebrities seem to fill this human need or desire. The celebrity mug shot transfixes us because we see our idols vulnerable – the mug shot seems to humanise our idols,” she said.
Graduating from the same class as Andy Warhol, Rachel Schmeidler is today an artist, printmaker and gallery owner in LA who recently worked on projects for street-art legend Shepard Fairey, and last year helped produce the silkscreen prints for the enigmatic British artist Bankys’s LA exhibit “Barely Legal,” where Angelina Jolie spent $400,000 on paintings.
“Many people can relate to the visual output of this process [and] bright colours; mainly because the graphic characteristic is seen in magazines, newspapers, television, and the Internet,” Schmeidler said.
“I spend a lot of time thinking about Warhol and how the creator of pop art, came from a very “un pop” town... Printmaking is a powerful communication tool used by all industries. Warhol made it okay to use it in art.”
“I need my work - the mugshots - to be clear and easily understood, so the viewers can immediately relate, and self-reflect. I want to immediately communicate to my viewers the subtle statement about our culture,” she said.
Other stars idolised (and subsequently humanised) in Schmeidler’s trash-glam line-up include Paris Hilton (two mug shots for her driving offences), Michael Jackson (2003, take a guess), Marilyn Manson (pelvis-grinding against the head of a security guard during a July 2001 concert), and Elvis (he actually requested his mug shot be taken while visiting President Nixon at FBI headquarters).
“The mug shot I’d love to create is Winona Ryder’s for the shoplifting incident at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. She was never at risk of hurting someone physically. I find this nice.”
www.hollywoodmostwanted.com
REBECCA FITZGIBBON