Issue date: 11/28/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Sol Jung A photo of College sophomore Michael Howard hangs above Fisher-Bennett Hall. The poster is a part of conceptual artist Braco Dimitrijevic's 'Casual Passer-By' series, which English professor Aaron Levy helped bring to campus. [Click to enlarge]

Some think he is a missing person or the victim of a violent crime.

Others suggest he's an American Apparel model or an undergrad running for student government.

But the anonymous male whose photo currently hangs above Fisher-Bennett Hall is actually a Penn student who has become the latest subject of conceptual artist Braco Dimitrijevic's "Casual Passer-By" series.

Since the late 1960s, Dimitrijevic, who was born in the former Yugoslavia and now lives in Paris, has photographed strangers he encounters on the street and plastered their faces on billboards, banners and buses in cities worldwide.

The photos, which suggest the fickleness of celebrity, are purposely ambiguous. As a result, each is interpreted differently in each city from decade to decade.

"Too much information would be actually killing the piece," said Dimitrijevic in a recorded interview with students in a Penn curatorial seminar. The class collaborated with the artist and the Slought Foundation, a Philadelphia non-profit organization that works with international artists, to put the exhibit together.

Dimitrijevic is currently in Berlin and could not be reached for further comment.

Last spring, Dimitrijevic stopped College sophomore Michael Howard in front of Starbucks at the corner of 34th and Walnut streets and asked to take his picture.

Howard signed a waiver for the photo to be used in an exhibition and forgot about the encounter - until a celebrity-sized poster of his face appeared above Fresh Grocer.

"I was a little mortified. It took me by surprise," Howard said, "and then I was a little embarrassed, because there's a massive picture of my face and all these people asking about it."

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