Fotokino

Charles Fréger started shooting groups of people, and the clothes they wear, when he was as a student at the Beaux Arts de Rouen. Among other subjects, he has portrayed skaters, water polo players, legionnaires, majorettes, factory workers, “wild men”… Over the years, several dozens of series have been produced in this way, most of them portraits. One could speak of an inventory, or an encyclopedic project, as the generic title suggests: “Photographic portraits and uniforms.” The apparent neutrality of the shots and the systematic aspect of the protocol strengthen this impression.

But if the photographer introduces a certain order within the frame, it’s to give more space to the fascinating, almost sculptural, beauty of the garments, and to the poetic quality that the viewer will be able to perceive—which by turns can also be of comical, whimsical, or even solemn nature. If Charles Fréger’s systematic approach registers the common aspects of members belonging to the same group, the amount of details and the pictures’ simplicity are a means to discover what remains unique in each individual.

By wearing a uniform, each person takes on a story, specific customs, and agrees to withdraw behind this costume. Paradoxically, their gesture can be also seen as a form of statement, claim, or even exposure: political choices, fantasies, or intimate worlds are thus revealed. Wearing an outfit out of the ordinary gives one a status which is equally extraordinary. Behind the uniforms’ dignity and brightness lies the tension between one’s desire and the group’s logics.

With “Fabula,” Charles Fréger highlights the question of staging. Through a series of forty photographs, visitors could discover subjects posing in truly theatrical postures, just like actors of a theatre company. In a flow of colors, bodies and clothes seem to play with contrats and metamorphoses: young well-dressed British high school students explode in a regal dance, while Indian soldiers appear to take part in a romantic comedy, and a young Chinese singer stares at the viewer with an agressive expression… Each seems to be where he/she is not expected.

Precisely as the artist himself, who momentarily became a Shanghai Opera dancer while participating in a choreography, as shown in the performance “Lu Qian Ren”. Fabula, or the art of staging, in latin.