The “Freaks” Move Downtown: GR Gallery Opens Space in Tribeca with Kazy Chan, Satoru Koizumi and Suanjaya Kencut

When Tod Browning directed his seminal film, Freaks, in 1932, there wasn’t the notion that it would become one of the most notorious and influential early American horror films. In the film, Browning reframes the idea of the circus “freak” as a close-knit, moral community, juxtaposed with the conventionally beautiful characters (the trapeze woman Cleopatra and the strongman) as selfish, cruel, and venal. The film argues that outward “normality” does not equal moral superiority. The film upends who counts as “normal” or “monstrous,” critiques social and moral hypocrisy, and forces viewers to confront their own appetite for spectacle.