Nora Gantenbrink

"Most sessions are shockingly harmless. What the people whose stories are shown in my pictures have in common is a meaningful quest for elementary human needs, such as freedom, warmth and comfort, maybe even happiness," Florian Muller recounts. He photographs fetishists; people who dress up as dogs or let themselves be bound and hung from the ceiling. It is their way of relaxing and achieving fulfilment. At first sight what you see is masquerade, Kafkaesque scenes, danses macabres, transformations into animals, into slaves, into a shrink-wrapped maggot. Behind the masquerade lurks stories of people and their needs. Of desires, wounds and dreams and the pictures tell us these stories. Florian Muller worked on fetishism in Germany for several years. Sometimes it took weeks before the people trusted him and let him in on their sessions. He did not abuse their trust. His pictures are not revolting, but close, almost tender.