Least Wanted: A Century Of American Mugshots

Least Wanted: A Century Of American Mugshots, September 14 - October 28, 2006 at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York, NY. "...Hookers, stooges, grifters and goons. Punks, sneaks, mooks and miscreants. These are the Least Wanted. Men and women. Elderly and adolescent. Rich and poor. Mostly poor. These photographs are part of a collection of over 10,000 American criminal mugshots ranging from the 1880s to the 1970s that I gathered over the last ten years. Least Wanted is a poetic encyclopedia of discarded portraits set free from the steel file drawers of police departments and prisons. Created as utilitarian instruments, they survive as extraordinary visual artifacts. Bored, sheepish, proud, coy, tough, defiant, bounced, and bruised. Innocent-until-proven-guilty faces that stare back at the camera with unmistakable individuality. This is central casting for the Late Late Show of an unvarnished reality. Small-timers. Fallen through the cracks." Also... Randy Kennedy... Grifters and Goons, Framed (and Matted) (New York Times, September 15, 2006).