WILDER MANN: Ou la Figure du Sauvage — Charles Fréger, 2012

With WILDER MANN, Charles Fréger turns his lens on the pagan and folkloric masquerades of Europe, capturing the ancient, animistic figure of the "wild man" as it appears in seasonal rituals across Austria, Germany, France, Italy, and the Balkans. These are not carnival costumes—they are archetypes steeped in pre-Christian cosmology, rural myth, and seasonal survival.

Fréger’s photographic style is both taxonomic and theatrical: participants are presented full-figure against foggy pastures, snowy fields, or neutral backdrops, emphasizing their constructed strangeness. Pelts, horns, fur, straw, bells, soot—materials that blur man, animal, and spirit into an untamed presence. The effect is eerie, anthropological, and at times darkly comical.

This volume, with its dense visual typology and restrained design, parallels Fréger’s CIMARRON but shifts focus from the postcolonial Americas to Europe's own margins and inherited performances of “wildness.” It offers an unsettling view of how identity, nature, and the grotesque are staged and celebrated—season after season.

Technical Sheet
Title: WILDER MANN: Ou la Figure du Sauvage
Artist / Author: Charles Fréger
Date: 2012
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Hardcover
Dimensions (cm): approx. 21 × 26
Language: French
Pages: Unstated
Publisher / Editor: Thames & Hudson / Actes Sud
ISBN: 978-2-330-00799-1
Condition: Near Fine