A showcase of Phyllis Galembo's extraordinary photographs of the costume, ritual and traditions of masquerade Mexico Phyllis Galembo has travelled all over the globe to sites of ritual masquerade. In Africa, the Caribbean, and now Mexico, she captures cultural performances with a subterranean political edge. Using a direct, unaffected portrait style, Galembo captures her subjects informally posed but often strikingly attired in traditional or ritualistic dress. Attuned to a moment's collision of past, present and future, Galembo finds the timeless elegance and dignity of her subjects. Masking is a complex, mysterious, and profound tradition in which the participants transcend the physical world and enter the spiritual realm. In her vibrant images, Galembo exposes an ornate code of political, artistic, theatrical, social and religious symbolism and commentary. Galembo highlights the creativity of the individuals morphing into a fantastical representation of themselves, having cobbled together materials gathered from the immediate environment to idealize their vision of mythical figures. While still pronounced in their personal identity, the subject's intentions are rooted in the larger dynamics of religious, political and cultural affiliation. Establishing these connections is a hallmark of Galembo's work.

A Whimsical array of ghosts and goblins, spooks and skeletons, animals and nursery-room characters parade through this unparalleled collection of more than one hundred years of American Halloween costumes and masquerade. Photographer Phyllis Galembo approaches her subjects with the delight and wonder of one who has discovered an entire cast of characters backstage in an abandoned theater. Through her lens, the costumes rise from the dead to once again dance, play, and amuse. Ranging from handmade to store-bought, satin to polyester, the masks, wigs, and costumes, whether recognizable figures or obscure, pique our childhood memories. In her celebration of Halloween revelry, Galembo never settles for the ordinary; instead she creates evocative scenes of dressed-to-scare young trick-or-treaters "modeling" their disguises and of undead spirits haunting their surroundings. The costumes, which span over a century, take on magical qualities through fanciful sets and specialized lighting effects. Accompanying the costumes is a history of this always-popular holiday and essays discussing Galembo's inspirations and techniques. Through her art, Galembo allows us to act out our youthful fantasies of transformation -- to become, or at least observe, what we most want to be: free of inhibitions, of fixed notions of identity. Her images make us laugh and dream and maybe even believe in ghosts. Book jacket.

Maske is an album of Phyllis Galembo's powerful and thrilling masquerade photographs, from Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Zambia, and Haiti. Introduced by art historian Chika Okeke-Agulu, Galembo's pictures describe traditional masqueraders and carnival characters and are themselves works of vivid artistic imagination.

The transformation of man to beast is a central aspect of traditional pagan rituals that are centuries old and which celebrate the seasonal cycle, fertility, life and death.

Now Back in Print!Eighty-plus brilliant color photographs are accompanied by captions and essays from experts of Voodoo, or VODOU, the dazzlingly symbolic spiritual tradition. Photographer Phyllis Galembo shows us the human and divine faces and voices of real Haitian Vodou in a beautiful, personal, and intimate document of a fascinating and deeply misunderstood religion.Reissued with a new cover to coincide with the author's one-person show at the Albany Institute of History and Art in New York.A groundbreaking collection that was before its time. As alternative religions such as Wicca gain in popularity, less understood traditions such as vodou are garnering more attention. Captions and essays from experts in the field accompany brilliant photographs documenting the vodou religious practice.

This series of extraordinary photographic portraits by Charles Fréger brings to life the vivid costumes used in festivals by the descendants of African slaves in America. All across the Americas, from the sixteenth century onwards, enslaved Africans escaped their captors and struck out on their own. These runaways established their own communities or joined with indigenous peoples to forge new identities. Cimarrón, borrowing a Spanish-American term for these fugitive former slaves, is a new series of photographic portraits of their descendants by acclaimed photographer Charles Fréger, whose work is defining a new genre of documentary photography. From Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean islands, Central America, and as far as the southern United States, elaborate masquerades are staged that celebrate and keep alive the history and memory of African slaves and their creole or mixed-race descendants. Unique photographs of people in dynamic costumes from remote regions of the world will enthrall followers of social history, ethnic folklore, and unusual fashion experimentation. Vividly colored silks and cottons combine with woven fibers, leaves, feathers, and body paint; props include emblems of slavery and slave masters— ropes, sticks, guns, and machetes. These photographs, supplemented with texts by specialists in social anthropology to provide ethnographic and historical context, record real people whose collective sense of memory, folk history, and imagination dramatically challenge our expectations.