Charles Fréger: Rikishi

From the photographer who brought you wrestlers, now: 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 topic: 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.