You Complete Me : Who is a worthy icon?

Celebrities both living and dead were selected.  Eminem on left, Harvey Milk on right.

Celebrities are made in the public imagination, and their images become icons that stand in for everything we fear and aspire to be.  The famous need us to become icons as much as we need them to be heroes and villains.

For this project, the student artists chose a well-known public figure who has a contested reputation, meaning they are as admired as much as they are vilified. The person also has to be well-known enough so that he or she could be abstracted into a black and white stencil without a caption.  A photo of the person was made into a stencil so that multiples could be made.  When completed, the stenciled artwork is left in public with markers and other art materials are attached, allowing the public to engage, comment, alter and enhance the artwork - in other words "complete them."