Roger Ballen

The book features dream-space photo collages created by Xu Xiaowei. By combining visual representations of objects and places with ready-made images that randomly appear and disappear in contemporary Chinese society, the artist reinvents his memories. The artwork reflects the personal turmoil experienced in the face of rapid changes in Chinese society. Through non-linear and fragmentary stories that unfold in a dystopian fantasy world that is both pre-modern and post-industrial, the artist tries to convey this agitation. Using reconstructed photographs, the artist constructs a space of memory that lies somewhere between the tangible and the absurd.

The first monograph to present Roger Ballen's work in colour: a visual revelation that remains grounded in the chaotic, absurd psychological space of the Ballenesque. Having previously expressed no interest in colour photography, Roger Ballen was inspired to engage with the medium after receiving a Leica SL camera as a gift in 2016. Opening up to the potential of colour in his work, Ballen used light in creative ways, exploring new avenues of experimentation. Spirits and Spaces eloquently captures the absurd and bizarre world of Roger Ballen, where animals and Art Brut-like drawings dominate, and humanity is reduced to obscure figures or fragmented body parts. The new colour images in Spirits and Spaces, created in conjunction with Ballen’s artistic director, Marguerite Rossouw, were produced in a claustrophobic space, constructed of worn, wallpapered wooden panels and with minimalistic lighting. Here, in this dense, oppressive environment, Ballen creates what might be seen by many as a world that is unexplainable in words: one in which absurdity, chaos, comedy and tragedy apparently exist side by side. Both a visual revelation and an artistic evolution by one of contemporary photography's most unique voices, Spirits and Spaces is an essential and much anticipated photobook for all Roger Ballen fans.

Hungry Ghosts sees the prize-winning poet Gabriele Tinti collaborate with the acclaimed photographer Roger Ballen on a unique artistic engagement with the furthest edges of life and consciousness. Drawing inspiration from the Petavatthu verses of the Buddhist tradition, Hungry Ghosts is a thrilling evocation of the disturbing visions and the yearnings for a world beyond that have fed both ancient and modern understandings of the afterlife. Taking as their starting points the simplest of media—respectively the brief epigraphic verse and the photographic negative—Tinti and Ballen have produced something truly extraordinary: a masterfully crafted series of poems in dialogue with a stunning array of phantasmagoric images. Tinti’s verse has become renowned for its combination of rigorous sparseness on the level of diction with imagery of an extraordinary power and resonance. These qualities are once again much in evidence in Hungry Ghosts, but Tinti’s response to Ballen’s brilliant and disquieting works has also led him to explore an entirely new terrain: the uncanny borderlands between life and death.

A substantial retrospective on one of the world's most remarkable and critically acclaimed art photographers, now available in paperback.

The World According to Roger Ballen, co-authored with Colin Rhodes, looks at Ballen’s career in the wider cultural context beyond photography, including his connections with and collections of Art Brut. It features photographs selected from across Ballen’s career, along with installations created exclusively for the exhibition at Halle Saint Pierre and photographs of objects and works from Ballen’s own collection of Art Brut. Organized thematically, with texts by Colin Rhodes and an introduction and interview with Ballen by Martine Lusardy (the Director of the Halle Saint Pierre), The World According to Roger Ballen is both a catalogue of the first, major exhibition of Ballen’s work in France and an exploration of Ballen’s positioning within and connections to the wider context of modern and contemporary art.

In a world in which many photographers seek to avoid definition, Roger Ballen’s photographs define themselves in their defiance of classification and genre: his world stands out as one of a kind. The black-and-white images featured in Asylum of the Birds were created exclusively within the confines of a house in a Johannesburg suburb, the location of which remains a guarded secret. The inhabitants of the house, both human and animal – including, most notably, the ever-present birds – are the cast of Ballen’s world, performers amidst the theatrical interiors that they create and he orchestrates. The resulting images exist in a space between painting, drawing, installation and photography. They are timeless, psychologically powerful and masterfully composed.

Limited to 100 copies (+ 5 artist's copies) numbered 1-100. Includes a print of 'Candlelight' (2014), signed and numbered by Roger Ballen. Separated into four parts, Ballenesque takes readers on a visual, chronological journey through Roger Ballen’s entire oeuvre, including both iconic images and previously unpublished photographs. Part I explores his formative artistic influences and his later rediscovery of boyhood through photography, culminating in his first published monograph, Boyhood, in 1979. Part II then charts the period between 1980 and 2000, during which time his deeper search for the elemental self found its way into the ‘Dorps’, or small towns, of South Africa and concluding with the release of his seminal monograph Outland. Part III covers the years 2000–2013, when Ballen achieved global recogition with Shadow Chamber and Boarding House and his work began to veer away from portraiture altogether. Finally, in Part IV, Ballen reflects upon his career in its entirety. With over 300 photographs and an introduction by eminent academic Robert J. C. Young, this book provides both an entirely new way of seeing Ballen’s work for those who already follow his career and a comprehensive introduction for those encountering his photographs for the first time.

The Theatre of Apparitions is a highly anticipated body of work by one of the most original image-makers of our times, whose remarkable artistic trajectory spans the past 40 years. This book is the culmination of his ongoing study of the connections between photography, drawing, the mind and the body. Created between the years 2004 and 2008, these 90-odd black-and-white images encourage viewers to delve deep into the darkest part of their psyches. The images in this new monograph were inspired by the simple act of drawing on windows – a practice that Ballen observed first-hand in many communities. From there, he started to experiment using different spray paints on glass and then `drawing on’ or removing the paint with a sharp object to let natural light through. Finally, he photographed the results with a macro lens using black-and-white film. These black, dimensionless spaces effectively operate as canvases onto which Ballen projects pictorially his thoughts and emotions, creating, in effect, a theatre of the mind. The plates are separated into seven chapters or `acts’, with each one introduced by a text written by Ballen himself. Carving out a realm that is both earthly and otherworldly, physical and spiritual, his work transcends all traditional concepts of photography.

From 1982 to 1986, Roger Ballen, an American photographer, travelled widely throughout South Africa, visiting its scattered towns and villages. During this time he developed a unique vision towards little-known corners and artifacts, trading stores, old houses and humble people. Textured with time, these photographs reveal the essence of these places. Roger says he has tried to depict what he believes to be a disappearing South African aesthetic. With each year, the anonymity of the present further transforms the character of these places. 'In many ways I feel as if I have recorded the elements of a dying culture. I photographed these towns in the hope of 'freezing' time and arresting the utter extinction of the South African dorp.'