Every year in Europe, from France to Bulgaria, Finland to Sardinia, Portugal to Greece including Switzerland and Germany, men literally transform into “beasts” for a multi-secular masquerade. Metamorphosed as bears, goats, deer or wild boar, strawmen, devils or steel jawed monsters, these men celebrate the cycle of life and seasons. Their outfits, made out of animal skins or plants, include bones or belts with bells, hats with antlers or horns, astonishing for the exceptional beauty of their forms. Charles Fréger’s photographic portraits of these beastly men sublimates this fleeting escape from normalcy inherent to these masquerades and reveal a little known but astonishingly rich tradition. Born in 1975, Charles Fréger is a graduate of the Fine Arts school of Rouen.
You can read the full text on the French version of L’Oeil de la Photographie.
BOOK
Wilder Mann ou la Figure du Sauvage
Charles Fréger
Preface by Robert McLiam Wilson
Illustrations by Geneviève Gauckler
272 pages more than 200 color photographs
17 cm x 22 cm
ISBN : 978-2-87811-386-0
