Celebrity Mugshots Become Art

Mugshots tend to be the only photograph celebrities don’t want to see posted everywhere, but Los Angeles artist Rachel Schmeidler had turned the images into art with her latest exhibition. The show, Hollywood Most Wanted + Co., takes some of the most infamous images—from Fidel Castro to Jane Fonda to Paris Hilton—and gives them a bright face-life. Schmeidler used silk-screen and digital-imaging techniques to create the Warhol-esque photos of some of Hollywood’s most notorious names and communism’s most feared men. Schmeidler said she wanted to put political pundits side by side with celebrities and musicians to prove a point. “We are all ultimately the same before the flash of the mugshot bulb,” she said. The nearly 70 portraits went on display March 4 in Hollywood’s ArcLight Cinemas.