Catalogue of the exhibition inspired of American "Freak Show", presenting around 50 contortionist, giant, hairy or Siamese works.
The "freaks", those surprising phenomena at fairgrounds, "monstrous" humans long regarded as "abnormal", were popularised by the eponymous film by Tod Browning (1932) and exhibited from the mid 19th to the early 20th century, particularly in the United States, at events called "Freak Shows".
If particular freaks (fakirs, contortionists, sword swallowers…) performed tricks or extraordinary feats most of them - dwarves, giants, Siamese twins, tattooed women or men, bearded ladies… - were merely themselves and confirmed this mainly through static shows where they stayed motionless, just staring straight at the public. The showmen, the entertainers who presented them graced them with imaginary identities and told extraordinary tales of their lives. So if being tall is merely a physical attribute, then being a giant obviously implies much more.
