LE FROID, LE GEL, L'IMAGE: MERISOTAKOULOU: PORTRAITS PHOTOGRAPHIQUES ET UNIFORMES

Liege, Belgium: Editions Leo Scheer, 2003. First Edition. First Printing.. Softcover. As New/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Liege, Belgium: Editions Leo Scheer, 2003. Softcover. As New/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 120 pages. Collection of color portrait-photographs. One of the most beautiful titles in the iconic series of "Portraits Photographiques et Uniformes". The First Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a softcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Charles Freger: Small-size volume format. Pictorial softcovers with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Charles Freger. Text by Jean-Paul Curnier in the French original and felicitous English translation. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Liege, Belgium to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is exemplary in every respect. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Charles Freger's "Le Froid, Le Gel, L'Image: Merisotakoulou: Portraits Photographiques et Uniformes". The Cold, Ice, Image. Finnish sailors whose identification and loyalty are to one another rather than to Finland per se. The work of a brilliant portrait-photographer whose only possible equal is Rineke Dijkstra, the Freger Style is documentary PLUS portrait. His antecedent is August Sander, with an opposite twist: His portraits present not a national community (as Sander does) but the individuals who give a specific community its face and form. As such, his work is neither purely documentary or sociological. His emphasis on individual particularity repudiates nationalism as well as "globalization" and "the human family", the most cherished ideas of humanist-photojournalists (and corporations) , as nothing more and nothing less than a myth. Instead, he suggests, human beings choose, almost innately, to identify with a much smaller community than the nation or the UN. With every seemingly exotic portrait, Freger poses the same provocative and compelling questions: Why do I choose to belong to a tribe? Why do I adhere to its rules? Why do I believe in the necessity of social cohesion? Why do I express myself through others? Freger reminds us that so-called personal identity is inconceivable without the notion of belonging to a community; ethnic and sexual minorities understand this instinctively better than anyone else. An absolute "must-have" title for Charles Freger collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the half-title page by Charles Freger. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary photography classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with color plates. One of the most brilliant photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CHARLES FREGER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 2915280061.