Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen is a remarkable man, a geologist who worked alone in the outland of South Africa for the world's largest mining company, he saw a weirdo world far from the mainstream urban culture. People reverted to a more whimsical and iconoclastic lifestyle out there, which inlcudes an obvious ease with having Ballen and his medium format camera in their homes and even playing with him in ways that he keeps obscure. When he lectured about the work, every sentence was a question. Amazing!

Ballen's first book, published during Apartheid, showed white people who looked marginal and matter-of-fact mixing of the races that they wished to discourage, so the bulk of the edition were pulped by them. Few copies remain.

The images are amazing picture making, contrast-y black and white with great composition, reminiscent of the graphic quality of the best of Irving Penn, but also like Brassai grafitti pictures in their chaos and fun.

This is astonishing work, narrative but also filled with question marks.… (mer)