The World According to Roger Ballen
3.5.-21.9.2025
Roger Ballen is one of the most influential and important photographic artists of the 21st century, with a career that spans more than forty years. His distinctive, strange and sometimes disturbing images confront the viewer and challenge them to come with him on a journey into their own minds as he explores the deeper recesses of his own.
Ballen was born in New York in 1950 but has lived and worked in South Africa for more than four decades. It’s the margins of society and the darker side of the human spirit that have always fascinated the world-famous photographer and artist. Ballen came to international notice in 1994 with his black-and-white photo series Platteland. The images showed the grim reality of life for poor white South Africans, a group living in wretched conditions despite all their privileges during the Apartheid era. In the course of his career, Ballen has turned to making installations, in which he mingles the macabre reality with stage sets and props. People, dolls, rats and reptiles feature against a background of drawings of primitive figures. This distinctive ‘Ballenesque style’ enables him to create his own universe and has made Ballen a cult figure, especially among the young.
His contribution has not been limited to stills photography and Ballen has been the creator of a number of acclaimed and exhibited short films that dovetail with his photographic series’. A selection of six films was shown in this exhibition. Some of these films, and more, can be enjoyed through Roger Ballen's website, www.rogerballen.com.
The exhibition was curated as a collaboration between Roger Ballen and the team at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium. In the Exhibition Hall you got to see a selection of 55 photographs, 6 films, and a projection, – showing works from from 1998 to 2020, divided into seven sections; People, Animals, Real vs Unreal, Drawings, Wires, Colour and Apparitions.
In the exhibition The World According to Roger Ballen, through photographs and films, we invited the visitor to become part of Roger Ballen’s world.
'A photograph can confirm what we implicitly understand but cannot express. In my opinion, the best images are those for which we cannot find words.'
– Roger Ballen
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ARTIST TALK: SUNDAY 4 MAY 2025
We proudly invited you to join us for an ARTIST TALK & BOOK SIGNING with Roger Ballen at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium. Here is few photos from the event:
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Participating artists
- Roger Ballen