As a photographer and artist, my work goes beyond conventional photography; it seeks to explore the depths of the human psyche. The spaces I photograph represent the conflictual relationship between civilisation and nature, where opposites attract and break apart in a world built not on logic, but on irrationality. Delirium, mirage, dreams, and nightmares coexist, defying categorisation as either light or dark.
My photography, often stark and primarily in black-and-white, delves into the surreal, blending elements that transcend simple definitions. I began as a documentary photographer, and over the past few decades, a distinctive and complex vision has evolved. This style is commonly referred to as the ‘Ballenesque’. My aesthetic integrates photography, film, installation, theatre, sculpture, painting, and drawing.
Through my art, I aim to challenge the viewer: to confront the repressed and unresolved, and to interrogate what can be seen as real or unreal. I hope to evoke introspection and foster greater self-knowledge.
— Roger Ballen
The Inside Out Centre for the Arts
The Inside Out Centre for the Arts is founded by the Roger Ballen Foundation and is located on 48 Jan Smuts Ave, Forest Town, Johannesburg. Its goal is to promote African photography and art through exhibitions and educational programmes. The Inside Out Centre officially opened in March 2023.
Visit the website: Inside Out Centre for the Arts
Contact Details:
+27 87 700 5998
Current & Upcoming Events
Roger Ballen – “Tales of Wonder” – APERTURA Madrid Gallery Weekend – 12 September . 30 November 2024
Roger Ballen (New York, USA, 1950) is unanimously regarded as one of the most influential and influential photographers of the 21st century. His work has been exhibited all over the world and is part of the permanent collections of institutions such as MOMA, Tate Britain, Centre Georges Pompidou, Maison Européene de la Photographie, and the Musée de la Photographie . In this project we show photography and video of Roger around the concepts of black play and humor. Both are evident in his work, and even more recently, although other qualities such as restlessness and madness have usually been highlighted. The prominence of the unconscious and the archetypes related to animal instincts and the footprint of childhood in adult life connect us with the darker areas of our psyche when contemplating their work.
We’ve made a selection of iconic – though not so well-known – black and white images, as well as their new Polaroids with drawings. Roger has had a long relationship with Polaroids, however, he had never dared to draw in them before, until he began to do so from 2023. This can be seen as the application to a new medium of its original and daring drawings that have always been part of their scenes and that have gained their own life and autonomy since the confinement of COVID-19. Dark Camera was the first art gallery to show these drawings around the world, thus becoming a fundamental part of Roger Ballen’s work.
We will also premiere the video “Roger the Rat” for the first time in Spain. Produced in Johannesburg between 2015 and 2020, Roger creates and documents a half-human and half-rat creature living an isolated life outside society.
To receive the materials of the exhibition (presste note and images) contact us at the (-34) 91 429 17 34 or at info.camaraoscura.net
Contact us to find out about the availability and price of the pieces in the (-34) 91 429 17 34 or by e-mail juan-camaraoscura.net
Location: Fondamenta di Borgo Briati, Dorsoduro 1134 – Venezia
Dates: 20/09 – 20/11/2024
Open on: Tue-Sat 1
5.30-19.00. Sun 15.00-18.30. Closed on Mondays
Opening 20/09 6 pm – 8 pm
Curator: Roberta Reali
Project Manager: Annarita Rossi (Galleria Alice Schanzer)
Soundtrack: Venice Apparitions by Cobi Van Tonder
Graphics&Layout: Roni Fuci
Set up: Team
Sound Eingenieering: Marino Basso
The Theatre of Apparitions, the most renowned experimental work by cult photographer Roger Ballen (NY 1950), and his Artistic Director, Marguerite Rossouw, returns to Venice from 20 September to 20 November 2024 at SpazioEventi in La Toletta bookshop, promoted by Alice Schanzer Gallery, after having been exhibited, in another version, on the luminary lightboxes of the South African Pavilion at the 2022 Biennale.
The series of works chosen for the exhibition ROGER BALLEN. Venice Apparitions, features a selection of extraordinary photographs appearing in the shelf-lined belly of the Fondamenta Briati gallery, visually illuminated by the space’s high-definition light design.
The immersive quality of this show is enhanced by the soundtrack of the South African composer Cobi Van Tonder, whose homonymous site-specific composition makes the exhibition interiors pulse with dense and subtle vibrations, diffusing the synthesized physicality of the electronic sound in the ambient. Nonetheless, music in dialogue with the visual Apparitions, suspended in the darkness, reflects their murmurs, voices, lights, shadows, cries and whispers, laughter and sudden movements.
The Venetian Apparitions are chosen from photographs taken between 2005 and 2013. In collaboration with his artistic director, Marguerite Rossouw, he recreated on the windows of a building in Johannesburg a phantasmagorical iconographic series obtained by fixing fluid iridescent and subtly grainy concretions on the black glass background, using mixed techniques: spray paint, epoxy resins, emulsions and brushes. From the material deposits, the artist extracts archetypal, ectoplasmic and otherworldly forms directly from the dark chamber of his subconscious.
‘During the period we worked on these images, we worked feeling our way into new territories. Through trial and error, using various techniques, we were eventually able to establish methods that culminated in imagery of a new dimension. These have been likened to prehistoric cave paintings on which thoughts and emotions were portrayed. The images were rarely planned and were instead the results of a spontaneous process in which the choice of material sometimes created magical and inconceivable outcomes. They share a complete absence of conscious awareness. They are all born out of the unbearable, the unacceptable and even the unthinkable.’ – Roger Ballen
This is the ‘Ballenesque’, a surreal theatre made up of figures of archaic and unconscious psychic interaction, personifying clusters of thoughts, life and death, impulses and unfathomable emotions.
These projections of the primitive mind that emerge in Roger Ballen’s stream of consciousness display humorous kermesse of Freudian archetypes in a ‘cruel’ dialogue oscillating between the poetics of Artaud and Lacan.
The Theatre of Apparitions is aimed at breaking down the barriers of separateness and creating a profound relationship with the viewer, in which common origins are investigated in the nocturnal abysses of the universe. A cosmos that manifests itself as an appearance created by the mind in the same way that, in photographic art, light brings forth from corpuscular matter the image generated in the darkroom.
The entrancing in the architecture of sound and image that envelops and enraptures the viewer in the exhibition Venice Apparitions certainly conceived in this sense.
Roberta Reali
“A good photo comes from nowhere”
ARTIST: Roger Ballen
CURATOR: Alain Jullien
FOREWORD: Roger is a photographer. It sounds simple and evident, but in fact very few of us are that simple and evident. As most photographers of his generation, the same as mine, he started with a documentary frame of mind. Fortunately for us, he has imagination!
This word is important, for me, but also for you, because of this, he can take a leap in different directions while staying within the realm of photography.
Roger Ballen (born 1950 in New York City, lives and works in South Africa) is regarded as one of the most important contemporary photographers. We are delighted to present Ballen in a festival selection exhibition in the Prospekthof of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Brian with Pet Pig, 1998
“Animal Absurdity” is a deliberate exploration and themed exhibition that shows selected works out of Ballens oeuvre. The animals shown, often rats, birds, dogs and other creatures, serve as a metaphor for chaos, primal instinct and a troubled human condition. Their unsettling presence heightens the psychological tension in Ballens compositions and blurs the line between the human and the animal. The animals often mirror the vulnerability or madness of the human figures, creating a haunting connection to themes of power, control and isolation.
Bite, 2007
In addition to the exhibition “Animal Absurdity” at our festival headquarters, we are also pleased to announce a collaboration with the Leica Gallery Vienna where you can visit an exhibition on the project “Roger the Rat” until May 22, 2025.
