The body of work that makes up BEAUTIFUL FREAKS finds its origins in London – specifically back in 2005-2008, at the time when East London's electro scene started to gain real momentum.

German-born photographer Ralf Obergfell became a regular attendee of the much-loved Trailer Trash nights, capturing the magic of the club’s own after-dark legends and befriending many of them.

As a resident of Dalston until 2010, when he moved to live and work in Berlin, Obergfell had been a passionate particpant in and chronicler of the area’s burgeoning nightlife scenes from their earliest days. Armed with his camera, he has documented the polysexual denizens frequenting gritty-yetground- breaking East London watering holes such as the George & Dragon and Joiners Arms on Hackney Road and at the notorious gay parties at 333 in Shoreditch.

Continuing to photograph the more extreme enclaves of club kids, disco freaks and transsexuals, Obergfell has consistently zoomed in on the most exotic creatures at a new wave of nightlife events, including GutterSlut (the club night he founded with Per QX, Nic Fisher and Elliot Brown), NYC Downlow and other knees-ups of note such as Jonny Woo’s Gay Bingo and Tony Hornecker's Pale Blue Door pop-up restaurant.

Obergfell’s photographic interpretations of the remarkable characters he has discovered on his nocturnal travels avoid the distant stance of the voyeur. The pictures he presents make for a celebratory and highly-involved testament to those whose lives – reinvented, transformed; made better, brighter, louder, wilder and lived-out to the max – are a fantastic confusion of reality and performance, with the disco and art gallery as a stage.
James Anderson,Art Critic at i-D

‘BEAUTIFUL FREAKS pays tribute to London’s glittering creatures of the night.‘
Critic’s Choice, Time Out London

‘Ralf Obergfell’s series of portraits portray the elaborate creatures that frequent the nocturnal London club scene.‘
Royal College of Art

‘The BEAUTIFUL FREAKS exhibition was a true force to be reckoned with.’
Dalston Superstore Gallery 

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