Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950, but since 1982 he has lived and worked in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he is a major artist of the contemporary scene. After studying geology, Ballen got his doctorate in mining economics in 1981 and began working in mineral exploration. It was in 1983, however, armed with his camera, that he began a completely different activity, digging – as he puts it – into the layers of his own inner life and piercing the external surface of a poor and deeply rural country far removed from the clichés of a strong, modern South Africa, in order to reveal visual and cultural anomalies that were signs of a dying culture.

Since 1995, Ballen’s visual experiments have made the borders between reality and fiction ever more uncertain. Stories are told in closed worlds, saturated with drawings, photos, graffiti, but also with hanging wires, where walls are essential to the overall image, jostling our gaze and exploring the depths of the human condition. Both mysterious and explicit, Ballen’s works strive to be revealing moments that allow the visitor to grasp what remains inexplicable. They invite the viewer to go deep into his mind for an extreme journey. They also attempt to free suppressed thoughts and feelings through the themes of marginality, strangeness, the relationship between the human and animal worlds, universal archetypes of the psyche and experiences of alterity.

For over forty years, Roger Ballen has been exploring the twists and turns of his subconscious through stagings that shift between dreams and reality. His use of the square format and of black and whites that are both dense and austere, and his ‘ballenesque’ aesthetic – as he calls it, the better to own it – place his work in the vein of fine arts photography whose codes he continues to disrupt.

Born in the US and based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Roger Ballen is one of the most important photographers of his generation. He has published over 25 books internationally and has collections in the most prominent museums in the world. In 2022 Thames and Hudson published his book Ballenesque, Roger Ballen: – A Retrospective, a major survey of his collected works.

His oeuvre, which spans five decades, began with the documentary photography field but evolved into the creation of distinctive fictionalized realms that also integrate the mediums of film, installation, theatre, sculpture, painting and drawing. Ballen describes his works as “existential psychodramas” that touch the subconscious mind and evoke the underbelly of the human condition. They aim to break through the repressed thoughts and feelings by engaging him in themes of chaos and order, madness or unruly states of being, the human relationship to the animal world, life and death, universal archetypes of the psyche and experiences of otherness.

Through his unique, complex visual language, and universal and profound themes, the artist has made a lasting contribution to the field of art. Ballen has also been the creator of several acclaimed and exhibited short films that dovetail with his photographic series. In 2022, he was one of the artists that represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale of Art.

Major Solo Exhibitions

2023

Valletta Contemporary, Malta

Fotografiska, Tallinn, Estonia

Musée Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland

Hungarian House of Photography/Mail Mano House, Budapest, Hungary

Haihui Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China

2022

diChroma photography, Madrid, Spain

Senigallia City of Photography, Senigallia, Italy

Fotomuseum The Hague, Netherlands

Venice Biennale Arte (South African pavilion), Venice, Italy

2021

Fotomuseum The Hague, Netherlands

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece

Portuguese Center of Photography, Porto, Portugal

2020

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa, Florida

Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Thessaloniki, Greece

Francisco Carolinum, Linz, Austria

2019

Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels, Belgium

Halle St Pierre, Paris, France

Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Latvia

2018

Center of Photography, Montevideo, Uruguay

Museu Fotografia Fortaleza, Brazil

National Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria

School of the Photographic Arts, Ottawa, Canada

2017

Guangdong Museum, Guangdong, China

Jingdezhen Tao Xichuan Museum, Jiangxi, China

National Photomuseum, Bogota, Colombia

Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France

Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa

Central Academy of Fine Art Museum, Beijing, China

Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Mexico City, Mexico

Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey

Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, Florida

Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts, Goa, India

Von der Heydt-Kunsthalle, Wuppertal-Barmen, Germany

Wei-Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Zemack Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

2016

Central Academy of Fine Art Museum, Beijing, China

Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Mexico City, Mexico

Foto Museo de Cuatro Caminos, Mexico City, Mexico

Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey

State University, San Jose, California

Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, Florida

Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts, Goa, India

Sydney College of Arts, Australia

TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Canary Islands

2015

Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin

Kafka House, Prague, Czech Republic

Kyotographie, Kyoto, Japan

La Fabrica, Madrid, Spain

Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

Musée de l’Image, Braga, Portugal

Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland

Serlachius Museum, Mänttä, Finland

2014

Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden

Kunst- und Kulturzentrum Monschau, Aachen, Germany

Moscow Media Centre, Russia

Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France

Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy

Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Brasília, Brazil

2013

Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen, Denmark

Museum of Old and New, Hobart, Australia

Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California

Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC

2012

Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria

Manchester Art Museum, Manchester, UK

Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland

Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Novosibirsk Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia

Northwest University Museum, Potschestroom, South Africa

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel

2011

Mannheim Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg, Germany

Museum Het Domein, Sittard, Netherlands

Omsk Museum, Omsk, Russia

2010

Bozar, Brussels, Belgium

George Eastman House, Rochester, New York

Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Sammlungsleiter Fotomuseum, Munich, Germany

2009

City Museum of Ljubljana, Slovenia

National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, Australia

Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, Canada

University of Johannesburg, South Africa

University of Pretoria, South Africa

2008

Hertzelia Artists Host Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel

2007

Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany

2006

Atlanta College of Arts, Atlanta, Georgia

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France

Museum voor Fotografie, Antwerp, Belgium

Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark

2005

Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands

2004

Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California

Le Chateau d’eau, Toulouse, France

State Museum of Russia, St Petersburg, Russia

2002

Galleria D’arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California, United States

Musée Nicephore Niepce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France

Museo for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark

Museo Nazionale, Brescia, Italy

2001

Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden

Krefelder Kunstmuseum, Krefeld, Germany

2000

Museum of Photography, Athens, Greece

Noordelich, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Royal Theatre, Namur, Belgium

1998

Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland

Kunstal Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands

1995

Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France

Royal Festival Hall/Hayward, London, UK

1994

Afrikaner Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

1986

Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa

1982

Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa

1981

Centre for Photography, Denver, Colorado

He is also the founder and executive director of the Inside Out Centre for the Arts in Johannesburg, which opened to the public in March 2023. The Centre aims to promote an awareness of African related issues through exhibitions and educational programmes. Its first show, entitled End of the Game, explores the decimation of wildlife in Africa both through historical artifacts and Ballen’s photographs and installations.