Arresting Images - Mug Shot Aesthetics

So the weird thing is that when I started writing about how the Aesthetics Of Imperfection influence popular art I actually had no intention discussing 'art' at all, but rather how the banal, practical limitations placed on the production of purely functional things can engender in that functional thing a powerful, iconic aesthetic the rival of any cultural artefact produced with an artistic intent. The reason I was thinking about this subject was because I'd been digging the rogues gallery of celebrity mug shots at thesmokinggun.com, and generally thinking how cool they were, and what a strong visual presence they have. (But mainly: "oh, man! Look at Yasmin Bleeth! Cocaine possession? Wow. And check out Shia LaBeouf! 'ignored a security guard's demand to leave a drug store?' What the hell kind of crime is that?!")

The photographs above were taken, as you can read, in Cleveland Ohio, on November 3rd, 1970. The lady throwing a defiant radical fist in the air is movie actress and political activist Jane Fonda, who had been arrested for assaulting a police officer. The main thing about these shots is that Warhol himself couldn't have done any better. Some dumb Ohio cop with an instamatic blasts off a couple of ultra-cheapo black and white snaps, and produces an image packed with more drama, sex and history than any 60s mod artist could ever hope for. Hollywood-noir? The Dark Side Of Celebrity? Pop Art? You got it, and it's the real deal, not some double-thinking post-modern pose. Check out the Man In Black, pictured here on a drugs bust in El Paso Texas on October 4th, 1965:

In some ways I guess these images capture popular figures at their lowest ebb, unguarded, un-polished, un-airbrushed, the rock-bottemest of rock bottom, as real as these unreal people get, and in an age obsessed with The Celebrity Meltdown, these images resonate strongly. On the other hand, if the celebrity's persona fits, mug shots are potentially as legend-defining as any image of them could be, brimming with outlaw romance. The man whose most famous performances were held in maximum security prisons, the man who sang that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die...could a criminal mug shot, especially a mug shot in which he looks impeccably bad-ass (that quiff! That suit!) be any more perfect? And Fonda's reputation ('Hanoi Jane!') as bone fide queen of radical chic could hardly be better served than it is by that steely stare and the defiant, fuck-you right-on fist. No posed glamour shot could ever say more than this image.

The dimensions of the image, the grainy black & white photography, the face-forward and side-on portraits, and the criminal record board combine to produce a unique look, a consistent, instantly recognisable visual aesthetic. The repetition of the image (albeit from different angles) is I think particularly visually satisfying, and I'm sure I won't be the first to see a parallel here with Warhol's screen print repetitions.

It is not inevitable that The Mug Shot will become the definitive image of a celebrity-criminal tabloid story; there is no internationally famous OJ Simpson mug shot, for instance. But where the mug shot and the story come together perfectly, the mug shot, a picture not taken by a member of the paparazzi or Annie Leibovitz, can come to define not just the particular incident it records, but an individual's entire career. Just ask this guy.