"If paparazzi shots of Britney Spears picking her nose and Hillary Duffgetting a parking ticket just aren't doing it for you anymore, and thepages of In Touch magazine seem nothing more than a blur of neoncaptions, exclamation points and arrows pointing to thongs sticking outof sweat suits, fret you not. Thanks to French photo-journalists PascalRostain, 45 and Bruno Mouron, 50, there is now a new, improved, evenmore intrusive and stalker-like way to idolize and relate to yourfavorite celebrities. For the past 14 years, the Paris Matchphotographers, armed with a celebrity star map and a pair of rubbergloves, have been waiting til the sun goes down to rifle through,collect, and photograph celebrity garbage. That's right: trash, refuse,waste, Governor Schwarzenegger's empty Newman's Own Lemonade cartons.And through July 16, at the Star Trash Store in Manhattan, you can viewStar Trash, an exhibit of photographs documenting 25 Hollywoodsuperstars' waste products, including (but not limited to) Madonna'sempty Cocoa Pebbles box, Mel Gibson's discarded Etch-A-Sketch, andSteven Spielberg's tattered copy of TV Guide.
While Rostain and Mouron chose to do their hunting and gathering in thewee hours of the night, there was actually nothing illegal about goingthrough these celebrities' garbage -- the only crime, Roustain explains,would have been to photograph any sexual or medical-related objects. "Wefound empty boxes of Viagra," Rostain admits, "but I cannot tell you inwhose trash we found them." And really, even if it were legal tophotograph such scandalicious objets d'art, Roustain and Mouronprobably would not. "We really didn't do this to make a scandal,"Roustain says. Instead, he claims, "We hope that in the future, thesepictures will appear in some history book." Their goal is that thephotos will someday serve to document and illuminate thecapitalist-driven consumer culture of the 21st century. "I don't callmyself an artist -- I'm a garbage investigator," Roustain, the armchairsociologist, says. "Next, we want to photograph the garbage of normalpeople -- a Chinese family, an Indian family, an African family,families all over the world."
But lest you think these two are fuddy-duddy academic-types who takethemselves too seriously to see the humor in Ronald Reagan's empty boxof Thomas' English Muffins, Rostain claims that first and foremost, "Wedo this for fun."
So, take that paper bag off your head, there's no shame in this game. Infact, we give you the right to view these photographs entirely withoutguilt or embarrassment. After all, you're only going to the show becauseyou're interested in the sociological implications of garbage and thebroader, social trend of celebrity-worship in American popular cultureright? Right."
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