Roger Ballen: Shadow Land. Photographs (1982–2013)

Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950, but has lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, since the early 1980s. He studied psychology at the University of California and geology at the Colorado School of Mines, where he also received his doctorate. He initially worked as a geologist in South Africa, but his enthusiasm for photography prevailed and, as a result, he has been making photographs there for more than thirty years. 
His first photographic experiments as a student focused on political and social issues and adopted a photojournalistic approach. This way of looking continued in his early photographs made in South Africa, such as those included in the book Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa (1994). Working with empathy and a journalist’s outlook, Ballen portrayed white people on the margins of society who lived in remote rural towns. These powerful works broke numerous taboos and met with an uneasy response. In 2013, Ballen commented: “After the book was published, I was subjected to numerous accusations. I was regarded as a whistleblower, as the Edward Snowden of that time.” 
Speaking of his inspirations, including Elliott Erwitt, he said: “He planted the seed of humour that appears in my photographs.” He went on to discuss his friendship with André Kertész: “He was an artist first and a photographer second. Through him and his work, I realised that photography could be more than a way of documenting reality. Some of Kertész’s most famous photographs were taken from the windows of his apartment on Washington Square in New York. I remember taking photographs from his balcony, trying to match him.”
In later years, Ballen became part of a community living in a three-storey warehouse in Johannesburg—poor labourers, traditional healers, criminals, isolated people on the margins of society and animals. Through frequent, even daily visits, Ballen managed to establish a rapport with them, which allowed him to photograph and document their primitive living conditions. 
These powerful photographs were published in subsequent books: Shadow Chamber (2005) and Boarding House (2009). His latest series, Asylum of the Birds, continues and gradually develops his earlier work.
Ballen’s black-and-white photographs are often described as psychological, penetrating the viewer’s consciousness. The blurring of the boundary between art and document, together with black humour, unsettles one’s sense of reality. One recurrent feature of his photographs is a marked interest in boundary lines: railings, wires, walls and corners.
In 2012, Ballen collaborated with the South African group Die Antwoord on the music video I Fink U Freeky. Ballen had known the group for many years. They first worked together in 2010, when Ballen’s drawings were incorporated into one of the group’s videos. The I Fink U Freeky video was viewed millions of times online and significantly increased recognition of Die Antwoord.
Ballen has held more than fifty exhibitions around the world, and his work is represented in numerous museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A major retrospective of Ballen’s work was presented at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in 2013 and received critical acclaim.