Charles Fréger: Rikishi

by Chihiro Minato, Didier Mouchel, Charles Fréger (Photographer)

From the photographer who brought you wrestlers, sumo wrestlers. Charles Fr ger has supersized his life's work with this large book of larger-format portraits of...substantially larger subjects. And perhaps a larger Sumo wrestling, which dates from the Heian Period, some 1300 years ago, is not just physical combat but also a nexus of religion, history, leisure and athletics. While it has come far from its roots as an offering to the gods, and is known best in Japan as a professional sport, these amateurs display a reverence and a piercing gaze that marks them as preparing for a meditative struggle, a battle of wills and of eye contact as well as body contact. But first, the battle is to get big enough--some of the youngest wrestlers here have hundreds of pounds to go.

144 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2006