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Roger Ballen
Boarding House
“It is difficult to explain this place except that I think it exists in some way or another in most people’s mind.” –Roger Ballen
These photographs are like images from a waking dream: compelling and thought-provoking, with layers of rich details, flashes of dark humor, and an altered sense of place. Blurring the boundaries between documentary photography and art, my work is both a social statement and a complex psychological study.
BOARDING HOUSE is a space of transient residence, of comings and goings, of people sheltered in a place they are using for their immediate survival. Basic and fundamental, the structure is furnished with objects necessary for an elementary existence, decorated with evocative drawings, and littered throughout with animals. Remnants function there as physical symbols of events that have occurred in the space; broken pieces of a functional reality exist as the leftovers of scenarios that have been played out there. The altered sense of place of this temporary abode creates a sense of alienation, which acts as a jumping off point for the imagination to run wild.
Bio
Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950. Since 1982 he has been living and taking photographs in South Africa.
His work is represented in many museums including Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Ballen’s work has been recently exhibited in numerous museums in Europe and the United States.
Related links
Editor’s note:
Comments are open on this essay… If you have any questions, feel free to ask Roger, he will be jumping in on the comments soon…It is with great pleasure that I present Roger Ballen on Burn…
… david alan harvey
One of my favourite photographers.
It’s always such a pleasure to see his work.
There’s a also a really good interview with him on lens culture.
“a jumping off point for the imagination to run wild…”
Indeed… curious, disturbing, some of these pictures made me shudder – others made me smile. Very rich – it will take some time for these images to work through my sub-conscious…
thought provoking and make me stop and look every picture.
like reading between the lines of a book.
I cant wait for Imants’s ideas on this one..
peace
i like the earlier work you did. This just feels like going through the motions.
These stretch my brain all out of shape.
Endless fascination!
ALL
Roger Ballen himself will be reading the comments for any questions you might have…
We’ve waived the one comment rule for this essay, so feel free to ask Roger a question…
Over the next few days he will be jumping in from time to time, this should prove very interesting…
I for one am looking forward to it….
cheers,
anton
I love 13, also like 21 and 25 quite a lot. FWIW, I was a bit put off by the opening of the photographer’s statement which reads like a PR blurb excerpted from a third-party review. I kind of don’t like being told by the artist that his work is compelling and thought-provoking. But I enjoyed much of it nevertheless. Glad to see it here.
QUESTIONS.
Roger, given my earlier comment i would like to ask..
WHAT DOES THIS ADD, IN YOUR OPINION, TO YOUR BODY OF WORK?
and more importantly..
WHY IS IT HERE????
john
Roger – how great to have you here on burn.
I’m a self-taught photographer, and your images are among those that comprised my early education. Platteland was out around the time of my own creative emergence, a time when I was most hungry to see work that effectively externalized and manifested the inner awareness. I can remember running my hands over the pages of your book, trying to garner the treatment of surface and light and line to understand how they played into the psychological texture of the map of psyche, thinking if I could process your world from outside-in I could probably process mine from inside-out.
There are many things I think your way of working taught me – among them, that discipline and obsession and persistence and working beyond audience are important, that being able to ‘use’ the outside world as an integral part of the medium is basic, that one must understand one’s own way of seeing if any significant unearthing of the self is going to be communicated successfully.
The specific elements in your language are neither alluring nor frightening to me; it is your grammar that excites…I think you and experience the world very differently, where you seem to be drawing with rough forces of entropy, I know peace and hope to lift the veil from the illusion of separateness… (please tell me you love the creatures and they collaborate with you without pain, that they are rewarded for their performances)…but that we experience the human/earth condition differently makes you no less my teacher, maybe in part it has helped me to understand myself more.
thank you…
Erica McDonald
wow. huge fan of ballen. so glad to see this body of work here.
“How he is curious, to the limits of his understanding; how he attempts to approach what arouses his curiosity, to th elimits of his motion; how confident he is, to the limits of his knowledge; how masterfrul he is, to the limits of his competence; how he derives satisfaction from another face before him, to the limits of his attention; how he asserts his needs, to the limits of his force.”
– ‘Within his limits’ from the story “What You Learn About the Baby”–Lydia Davis
Roger:
welcome aboard.
As with Erica, my wife and i too have been entranced by and nudged ourselves along the course of your life-work’s constellation since we first saw and essay of yours prior to the publication of “Fact or Fiction”: ironically just before our own marriage almost seven years ago…then when “Shadow Chamber” was published, the work became a began, if not for our own work (which too deals with navigating the internal along the switchback life of what lay before our eyes and experience) than for a small, simple notion: that one must simply remain true to the tact and tangle of that story which seems to carve out the inside our our lives when met with the tug of what lay out.
Ironically, I originally was juiced about your work as a painter, the scribble and crawl and dusty and detritus of Twombly’s word-scribbling and Beuys chalkboard-songs, the dry ink of chinese scrolls and the thumbprint of our own sons country-clipping singing, pasted to our walls and refridgerators. later, so much came adrift and untangled: the gorgeous late work of Giaciomelli and his wearing dream-songs, the family naming of Meatyard and his country of homes and masks and family ghosts, Camus’ sisyphus, Celan’s tight and cloistered poems, the music of Glass, all of which is about duration, obdurate duration of the hum of the heart. That is how your work has worked it’s magic…
Again, what both of us have charished so much about your work and why it is such a plesure to see it here is because of a small, bright thing: the duration and the hem. that each person wakes into this world and begins to take a walkabout humming and hauling along a very specific notion: that they are clicked and clacked by the contact, the song that rises up from inside their life, that like a shadow on the wall that moves, when attempted to be grabbed, from the wall onto the back of your hand. All too often, it seems to me, that photographers (maybe all folk of all walks of life) wish too much to either emulate or pursue that thing which seemed to haunt another rather than to harness their own syntax and grammar, their own clutching to that which gives rise to their own dark and enchanted life: see the ring before you. To find that way, that inimitable way that one needs to best speak of that which requires speaking. It is never about the specifics of the now, never about the specifics of what othersare doing, but about the varienty and variance and vegrities of that which haunt you, haunt each person, then all begins to swell….
what can be gained from your work, actually the entirety of the work, is the commitment, sometimes burdensome, sometimes lonely, always necessary, of plowing the that soil and dust that lay as the ground of one’s 4-chamber life: that which calls. That that, demonstrably, links work to others and makes it sing. That work isn’t at all about an essay, or at all about a specific moment in time, but is in fact about one’s life work, one’s breathing, what wratches and wrecks and relieves, over the course.
It is a great pleasure to see your work here. Not so much because we see the Ballen essay now (i know this book already from Christmas time ;)) but because again it acts, here at Burn as an example:
to clash and crush and care work, to put icons (yea, Roger, it may be squeemish but you, or at least your work has become iconic) along side unknowns and emerging and toilers of the dark. It is democratic and what I have always like…to put big names next to unknown names…to make it the work that enriches and not the contacts nor the names. It’s a real pleasure to see this here….
I also think that Roger’s life, his work ethic and life, should serve, just as Giacomelli’s did, as an example of what matters what carves out sustainable and inspired/ing work: not immediacy,not fame, but long-haul chewing upon things….
I wish more young photographers, more people in general understood that.
thank you so much for sharing your work and most importantly yourself with burn and the audience:
only 1 question: if you are ever in Toronto, would you like to come over for tea and cognac? :))))
thanks so much
all the best
cheers
bob
I’ve always shied away from Ballen’s work because I’m not sure I’m really ready to look. But today I looked, and it wasn’t as disturbing as I expected. I think his statement really gave me an entry point (though I, like a previous commenter, also reacted to being told the work is compelling and thought-provoking – I prefer to come to those conclusions on my own).
I’d like to know how much, if anything, his work has to do with South Africa? Would he make these kinds of pictures no matter where he lives or is there something distinctly South African about them?
Whoa what outrageous and brilliant compostion. I love the use of the animals, in a way I have never seen done. I love number 5, I want that little dog.
The pictures are amazing. Dark, clever, and humorous; at times, chilling, other times, warming.
Knowing how quick kittens are to dig with their claws, I worry a little bit for the future pleasure and posterity of the gentleman in frame 14.
Hi Roger:
quick follow up to my overly long post :))….
the 1st question (tea and cognac) still stands, but here’s a quick 2 more:
1) love dubuffet alot and he’s also one of the artists with whom i associate your work (besides the others i mentioned, so could you speak about other artists (they dont have to be photographers, but painters/writers/musicians/barbers) who you dig, not necessarily inspired by?
2) how did you learn about Burn?
3) since doubt is a part of each of our lives and inhabits all our work, could you speak a bit about doubt, your own artistic doubt. your work as formidable visual strength and your practice has shown a dedication of pursuit (even in anonymity), so how has, if any, the role of doubt/second guessing yourself helped to hone your voice and visual expression…
thanks again
all the best
bob
No words. These photos, this work, Roger’s vision leave no place for words in my head. My reaction is cellular not verbal. I experienced a variation of this essay on Lens blog in November and have been mulling it over ever since. But I didn’t know until now that it was careening around my imagination, asking questions, destroying assumptions, influencing my dreams. I am left breathless after seeing this edit several times and then going back to watch the Lens edit again. If you go there, be sure to turn on your sound because Roger narrates it.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/showcase-81/
How does an individual let his rational mind go into these mysterious places and create art like this? Hell, I’ve been an artist for 35 years and am in awe of such an original vision as Roger’s. God, man, how do you do it???
Patricia
Not expecting Roger Ballen here! I have often felt influenced and kept an open eye for him. Very exciting.
JOHN GLADDY ..
you asked the same thing of Nachtwey essay.. wish I could figure out why you asked that question twice now…honestly..why would’t both photographers be here on Burn? you lost me on that one amigo
cheers, david
BOB..
Lassal wrote to Roger ..Roger wrote to me.. I wrote back to Roger… By telephone we decided what would be best to publish here on Burn…At that point Roger also agreed to come in and comment which he will do…
cheers, david
The lens culture audio interview to which srinivaskuruganti refers is between Jim Casper and Roger Ballen. It can be found here:
http://www.lensculture.com/ballen.html#
EXCELLENT!!!
well seen, consistently seen… for me brings to mind basquiat and clarence john laughlin and arthur tress and joel peter witkin and ralph eugene meatyard, a melange of the odd, dark and self-conscious. not my cup o’ tea but the art world has voted and i say: all power to you Mr. Ballen!
… rog video’d here, very briefly — he says he doesn’t like looking at photos on a computer screen — who knew? – http://photoblips.dailyradar.com/video/roger-ballen-talks-about-photobooks/
and another, longer vid: http://vimeows.com/7543438
DAVID. With respect, the question was for Roger Ballen.
I am truly interested in HIS answers. And I believe they are both valid questions.
john
DAvid! :)))
was actually going to call u today….dont know why, just thought i should (feeling this morning on the subway) and then i thought look at burn…open up, smiled big :)))…u know i dreamed about it last night (told marina)…and yet, i had no idea….weird, but absolutely true…i had a dream ballen would be on burn, no idea why…but…
anyway, great for St. Lassal….great for u….great for all of us too….
hope my 1st comment wasnt too long, but what is bob black to do ;)))
marina is also happy and will write something later in the weekend…now, we’re off for our friday night date…
happy to read his responds, will be lovely…
check ur email..an idea as a gift,
cheers
b
p.s.
marina linked to the lens culture interview before she left for russia. happy that some had a chance to listen…it is great,indeed
roger,
I had the privilege of seeing your work in the “flesh” in your show at the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne. Seeing it on screen now on further reminds me of how much more powerfull and raw it was in print. Nevertheless, wonderful to see more work.
The connection in these images to primal man comes through so strongly for me, and i also found that when looking at pieces from “Platteland”. A lot of people find your work incredibly hard to look at which I find interesting as your work is so human. The crowd at the gallery when I went to see your work seemed to linger in the room with images from “Platteland”, and seemed almost hesitant to enter the room the held “Boarding house”. How do you feel about people’s reaction to this work? I have my own suspicions as to why your later work seems harder for people to swallow but would love to hear your opinion.
Roger,
What are you after? You seem to be creating retro-multimedia with the imagery
before it is retro. Just a word and give it meaning?
Thanks for sharing.
Paul
I’m relishing the thought that Jim Powers watched this and lost his mind. (temporarily)
I’m blown away. It’s difficult to watch at “click speed,” because each individual image is an essay in itself. Probably better to have a book…
My favorites are the most intensively conceived images that are clearly (almost clearly) fiction. Those I can look at as art. The pictures that could be real give me a nagging feeling: somewhere between “this feels staged” and “this feels voyeuristic.”
Fine art photography or documentary voyeurism; but this tension is actually present in most of the work here, though not usually in the foreground like this.
Okay, I’m embarrassed. I’ve never seen Roger Ballen’s work before, and I assumed it was staged. After some quick research, I’ve learned it’s not staged (except in his mind). First, I’m all for that (staging photos in the mind, which is what photographer’s do). I’m even more amazed that such intensely expressive, complex images were composed without staging them.
On the other hand, if they’re not staged, then I think these are some of the most uncomfortably personal photos I’ve seen on Burn. Having lived and worked among the poor, I find it difficult to reconcile my admiration for pictures like this with the fact that real people have been used to express someone’s vision. I don’t know why I’m taken aback by these, and not by Diane Arbus’ work. Maybe because Arbus’ subjects always seemed so aware of the camera, and the pictures were about them. The people in these photos are both people and objects.
Still, if I could take pictures like this, I would… Still thinking about the book…
Andrew – from RB’s website, written by Robert Cook
Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia
“Since the late 1990s Ballen has been working at intensifying this core of his practice. For instance, his often curiously unique subjects now perform with and for him to create images that are in all ways true theatrical partnerships. He has also worked on the environments themselves, responding to drawings on the wall and clusters of objects that become antic sculptural formations as we find an unfathomable blurring of fact and fiction.”
JOHN GLADDY…
with respect back to you my friend, i am sure Roger will answer your question…i was not answering for Roger of course, but this is a public forum…i was not answering the question anyway, but curious why you asking it…even if he answers you clearly, your reason for asking it to both Roger and James will always be a mystery to me…the “tone” in both cases seemed condescending, but maybe i read it wrong…in any case, we all look at responses and comment on them all the time…including ones directed to a specific person….don’t i get to play? as you, i will look forward to the response of Roger…
BOB…
i have thanked Lassal personally for helping make this happen and i thank her again right now…Lassal is quite the motivated woman and i tell her whenever we chat how much i appreciate her efforts all around…
wish you had called…doing my expenses instead…bored….i am in my 9th hour of an 11 hour layover in Charlotte a city where you have some history i know…..had to get out of DC before they shut down because of snow, so took an early flight down…
cheers, david
Holy Shit! A Roger Ballen , Imants , Nachtwey three way , better put some colour in quick or they will start to take BURN seriously ( smiling) .
Thank you Lassall! Thank you Roger!
hey David. Never condescending. What position do I have to be condescending from? I hope you know that I have total respect and admiration for you and what you are doing here…..but sometimes i need to throw a curve ball out there and see if it hits anything, its in my natur, and I stand by it 100%.
And as for “dont I get to play?”…..you play as hard as just about anyone i’ve met :))
Hope you get to rio soon
JOHN
I am very happy to see Roger Ballen’s work. I discovered your work I believe here on burn, somebody had posted a link (Erica maybe?) and since you are one of my favourite photographers. I wait impatiently your new work !
kind regards, audrey
ps Did you know that Panos is Roger in drag………… see you learn something new every day
This essay is like an awkward dream for me. I have great respect for your work, Roger. I can’t enjoy these images too much because they make me feel uncomfortable … like a dream that is beautiful but too weird to return to …
lol…
mr. ballen,
my apologies. i am a non photographer.
how did you start… at the beginning of your career? did you always shoot this way?
did you think this was your niche? thought provoking pictures?
what did you shoot when the world started noticing you?
That’s certainly interesting work. High art, for sure. This is the first time I’ve seen your work, Roger, knowingly anyway. I’ve seen the image of the toe-headed twins from Platteland somewhere.
I’ll second John Gladdy’s question asking where you see these photos in relation to your body of work. Seems to me, and this may be shallow since I’ve done little more than glance at a tiny part of your body of work, that you were very much influenced by small town and rural life. Are you from a farm or small town or did you travel to these places, seeing them as an outsider? It also seems that your later work, the spontaneous or such theater in Outland, Shadow Chamber, and Boarding House, is very much an amalgamation of and growth out of your visual ideas in Platteland and Dorps. In fact, it seems like that can be said about each new work. Seen as a progression, it’s like you moved from the country, to a small town, to the city. The growth on top of previously realized ideas appears evident. I don’t go so far as John to suggest that you’re going through the motions in the more recent work. I see that the motions are becoming ever more precise. But I am curious where you see opportunity for future growth? Outland, Shadow Chamber, and Boarding House do seem very similar. Do you have any concern that the fields you’ve plowed so long will become infertile? Or can you continue to refine the same, or at least similar, vision indefinitely?
That last question, I see, kind of assumes that it is all about artistic vision. Is that accurate or is there a commercial aspect as well? Having found something that sells, is there pressure, or is it even a small consideration, to do more of the similar? Or is your vision so overwhelming that you can’t really consider doing anything else?
I hope those questions aren’t out of line, I certainly don’t mean them to be so. This reminds me of J School when we were required to ask at least one question of every guest speaker. It started out as a duty, but after learning a bit more about the guest, I always found I was genuinely interested in the answers.
Roger great stuff, it reminds me of my dog’s Boneyard a great place and important………..
ps my mob in ward 017 got a buzz
Michael there is a path to every journey as it refines and ever expands into new horizons, crawling slowly through the undergrowth and then the wind comes up…….
Profondo Rosso by Dario Argento comes to my mind.. the things you see without noticing.. but here I have to look and see them, one frame after the other, am confronted with it without being able to skip, hide or forget..
Nightmarish, bare bulb basement serial killer imagery. My first and last viewing of Roger’s work was Spring 2009 at OCAD in Toronto. His signature look is immediately recognizable. I’m gobsmacked and awe-struck by the texture and content.
In series, the fore, middle and background composing style begins to feel formulaic. For me, square format composition is better served through the intersection – not overlapping – of planes. If Ballen could add that to the mix my admiration for his work, already in the clouds, would be stratospheric.
DAVID: :)
yes, i should have called, was going to and then thought you’re schedule would be full on way to Rio….will call u upon your return….and remember, if u need additional contacts in Rio (5 weeks is long), write me and will hook u with Miriam and Sergio….they’ll also open alot of doors…plus provide good conversation/wine….
and also, i loved that Imant’s book/essay was juxtaposed with Roger’s book….i think it adds contextual resonance with imant’s accordian books, something i love here at burn….marrying and contrasting is a good way for people to see the strength of work they may not have at first recognized…
running, work to do for the weekend…
bob
Thank you for comments. Over the coming days I will respond to many of the probing questions that you have asked me.
Best,
Roger Ballen
Thankyou Patricia fot the links. Very helpful.
I’m torn by this stuff. One one hand I’m drawn to it. Morbid fascination. No question it is unique and important. I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that we are clearly looking at art derived by photographing marginalised people, some who would appear to have serious mental health issues.
This work fits in with my mental image of South Africa, a decaying, chaotic, bizzare, out of control place.
One thing that makes me curious is why are you there Roger.
I must take you to task on something you said in the interview from the link above regarding your technique. You said something like how you wanted to have a lot of depth of field because that is how our eyes work, no selective focus.
Now choose whatever technique you like, but it has nothing to do with how our eyes work. How our eyes and brain view the world is completely un-like any camera technique.
Fix your eyes on something , note that unless you re-focus your eyes, all is blurry except what you focus your attention on. This in fact is one of the biggest differences between how cameras see and how we see. If we have to make a photo/eyeball analogy, our vision is full colour, (and the higher the light level, the more saturated we percieve the colour), 3d, unless you close one eye, and an almost fish-eye 180 degree field of view, but sharp only in the very center. Then of course, everything is moving.
I’m in agreement with those who like your earlier work more.
All I can say right now is that I find Ballen’s images difficult to look at. Very disturbing. The roller coaster ride in my head gets pretty wild.
Not sure if I understand it correctly, but boarding houses were many times the places where kids were badly treated by teachers. Many Native Canadian Indians were put in boarding schools and still suffer from abuse and a traumatic childhood. Is that what you are after?
At the f-stop festival in Leipzig last year I sat with friends and I heared the name of Roger Ballen for the first time. I remember that later I looked up his work on the internet and I was irritated and had no idea what to think of it. The images looked bewildering to me.
Still, I appreaciate Roger Ballen’s work very much, because I feel there is a lot of thought behind the images. It is a great honour for burn to have his images published here!
Never mind my lack of understanding. So I would like to ask Mr Ballen:
How do you come to the idea for this series of images?
What are your reflections before you start taking the picture?
Thank you.
Reimar
Love this work.
Thanks Lassal, Roger and Burn.
JOHN GLADDY…
as always, just gotta love you John…
BOB..
pleased you noticed the juxtaposition….
we will talk upon my return , but would appreciate by email and contacts you may have…i may or may not have time to contact, but all possibilities appreciated…
cheers, david