Esprits du Japon. Charles Fréger

The photographs by Charles Fréger reproduced in this catalogue give an overview of Japanese ritual masks. These masks and costumes are worn during masturi celebrations to invoke, embody and represent deities, monsters, animals or spirits. As metamorphic accessories, they allow their bearer to change status and overcome human condition and weaknesses. This book confronts about twenty photographs by Charles Fréger with ethnographic and artistic objects from the collections of the Musée des Confluences in Lyon. Real “object-book” with two types of paper and two sets of formats in a Japanese-style Singer-sewed book cover, it is a reference to the exhibition “Yokainoshima, esprits du Japon”. While this catalogue praises the work of Charles Fréger, it also holds many surprises for the readers.

French photographer born in 1975, Charles Fréger worked on portraits series of uniformed groups like school children, legionaries and cheerleaders all around the world. He exhibited at the MAC/VAL in 2013 and published about twenty books.