In collaboration with LOOK/13, Open Eye Gallery presents the work of Charles Fréger and Eva Stenram. Both exhibitions are institutional premieres in the UK. Through their work, Fréger and Stenram reflect on how identity is constructed, embraced and performed for the benefit of the viewer in front of a camera. Looking at the way we define ourselves in relation to the other, the artists highlight the friction or tension that exist between the self and its representation.
In galleries 1 and 2, we feature the work of French photographer Charles Fréger (b.1975). The artist presents here, for the first time in a British institution, a consistent selection of individual and collective portraits. Drawing from some of his most celebrated projects (including The Wilder Mann and the Légionnaires: portraits photographiques et uniformes series), Fréger interrogates the verisimilitude of the photographic image, especially when it is framed within cultural categories such as history and folklore.