Roger The Rat, © Roger Ballen, Photo taken by Marguerite Rossouw
By Mica Bahn
I couldn’t get past the first image in Roger the Rat. Roger Ballen is pictured, dwarfed beneath a rat mask as he gently pulls its face on. If anyone has ever seen a rodent clean itself, they will recognize the rat inside of Ballen. Deep shadows and a contorted body find him morphing into the creature at the center of his new photography book––his large rounded back, small head, and delicate hands rise around his face. Roger the Rat’s bloodshot eyes stare straight into the camera. The photograph made me uneasy; was this Roger pulling on his persona, or being subsumed by it?
Smoked Out, 2020 © Roger Ballen
Roger the Rat materializes at a bizarre node between installation art, method acting, and photography––all with a splash of nihilism. The essay that introduces the book opens eerily, “I cannot remember when I put this rat mask on for the first time. Maybe I was born with it. I am not sure what is underneath.” Ambiguity of self seems to be Ballen’s point. In sharp black-and-white photographs, we follow the life of a not-quite-human creature through surreal, often disturbing scenes.
Dancing with the Angel © Roger Ballen
Roger dresses up his fantasies through a collection of mannequins that are featured throughout the book and their presence begs uncomfortable questions. How do we “set up” those around us? How do we fashion the identity of others? These bodies provide an emotional backdrop to Roger’s lonely world. Isolated and underground, the Rat offers the perfect persona to delve into the psyche and the forces that shape identity. Roger frequently appears to play-act being human. In “Prank,” a mannequin in a blonde wig and heels sits in a beat-up lounge chair “watching” an old box television. Child-like drawings of rats are pasted haphazardly on the wall. Roger stands behind her, head bent mischievously, as he places a large fake spider on her head.
Waltzing, 2020 © Roger Ballen
“Waltzing” finds another female mannequin in Roger’s arms. Her hand rests in his threadbare-fingerless glove and his head is tilted as if listening to a waltz that moves them. Images such as these create an emotional dissonance between Roger and his viewer. Where the rat appears playful, almost delighted, I was made melancholic by his desires. The mimicry of a normal life by way of dressed up plastic bears a type of insanity.
The photographs are produced in Johannesburg, though you would not know it. A subterranean setting precludes any reference to the hegemonic world above. This allows Ballen’s refined form to work in tandem with a world of absurd depravity. “Pinned down” has all of the discomfort of voyeurism as Roger photographs a stuffed lion having sex with a mannequin. In “Up Yours” Roger stands above a baby rat in a crib, flipping it off and drinking from his bottle. Still, there is a cheekiness to the image that makes Roger deeply relatable and, significantly, redeems the disgust he can initially illicit.
Revealed, 2020 © Roger Ballen
It’s a strange move for the photographer to introduce this book with an image of the mask partially off, revealing the man mid-evolution. As with an actor on stage, we are meant to suspend our disbelief. Yet revealing the constitutive nature of the mask adds depth to the artist’s exploration of the mind. Uncanny and crafted in the unmistakable Ballenesque aesthetic, Roger the Rat leaves you obsessively flipping through the underground world of a deviant. Whether that deviant is the photographer or his character, I am still unsure.
A 25-minute film of Roger the Rat will be released early next year. Below is a link to the trailer.
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