CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/31/2020

The joys of Hell on Earth in 'Marilyn Manson by Perou'

Featured spreads are reproduced from Marilyn Manson by Perou: 21 Years in Hell, easily our favorite 2020 book for the pagan holiday meant to celebrate the dead and ward off ghosts. A collection of 325 color photographs (many of which have never been published before) by Manson's foremost portrait photographer of the past two decades, this is, in every way, a cult object. Clearly, Manson loves the camera and the camera loves Manson. The book also contains a running interview, in which Manson comments back and forth with Perou on the photographs and the moods, ideas and experiences that came with them. In one exchange about the power of the image, Manson says, "There’s a big difference between someone who is a photographer as an artist and someone who happens to just have a camera you know? And granted, good luck to aspiring photographers, but just because you have a fucking Instagram page does not make you Perou. That’s your quote." And so it is.