Federal booking photographs are automatically entered into the public domain in the United States, and can be obtained by anyone through the Freedom of Information Act. While designed as a tool to index and collect the images of potential criminals in a database, the publication and distribution of these pictures is an astonishing act of invasion of privacy. Institutionalized, but in effect not much different of paparazzi pictures shot from afar.

I googled and downloaded the mug shots of various celebrities and ordered twenty “Mug Shot Mugs”, using Wallmart’s online photo service. These mugs were sent out to twenty people that have been of great influence to me in one way or another or whose work I have admired over the years. Some of the people who received a mug are friends, but most don’t know me very well – or at all.

The mug was an invitation to participate in a project dealing with the notion of lost privacy. All I asked from the participants was to place the mug anywhere in their home and take a picture of it. The way the mug was framed in the picture dictates just how much privacy they were willing to give up.

Click on the images to see the Mug Shot Mug

Colin Brice


Jeff Brouws


Kimberly Brown


Joshua Deaner


Todd Hido


Tim Nichols


Walter Niedermayr


Tom Sachs


Stefan Sagmeister


Joachim Schmid


Andreas Schmidt


Alec Soth


Katherine Streeter


Lawrence Weiner


Michael Wolf


Karen Zuckerman