Roger Ballen — The sorrow of death — the exhibition within the framework of the 7th High Silesian Chamber Art Festival
catalogue ‘Roger Ballen — The Sorrow of Death’ The publication is the result of Roger Ballen's initiative within the framework of the exhibition entitled “The Sorrow of Death”, which was held in...
Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950. As a teenager he had documented demonstrations connected with Vietnam war and portrayed their participants. He studied psychology at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1972 he started to travel around Africa, Asia, and New Guinea. Many of his repeated motives Ballen has seen at tribal homes he visited in a wilderness. His pictures can be situated on the edge of documentary photography, painting, theatre and sculpture. On the viewer they make an impression similar to abstractive paintings based on collective fears and obsessions. The perceptible chaotic character undermines their structure and seeps from the cracks in the shell of what’s accepted as normal, rational and logical. His surrealist pictures, revealing the circulation of pictures in an unlimited stream of collective imagination, initiate the deepest levels of the subconscious. Strange and ugly people take part in staged scenes. They are doing things that are difficult to be named. They play with plush toys and stuffed (or living) animals. They are surrounded by stretched wires, masks and primitive signs on the walls of empty prison-resembling rooms.
His works are shown in many museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Maison Européene de la Photographie in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
He is a laureate of numerous and prestigious photographic awards, including being a finalist of the Citigroup Prize contest in England (2000), the title-winner as the Photographer of the Year 2002 at Arles festival, and the winner of the special honorary mention at UNICEF contest Photo of the Year 2001.
One of his albums is acknowledged to be the best publication devoted to photography during the Spanish Photo Festival PhotoEspana 2001.
Curator: Marek Zieliński
The exhibition arranged in collaboration with the Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris Cultural Institution within the framework of the 7th High Silesian Chamber Art Festival.
