Roger Ballen's Theatre of the Mind

Overview

After nearly five decades roaming the globe and shooting images, American photographer and icon Roger Ballen is finally coming to Sydney to hold a major solo exhibition at the Sydney College of the Arts. His show, which coincides with the 20th Biennale of Sydney, is a retrospective of 75 works from the last two decades and has been carefully curated by SCA Dean at the University of Sydney, Colin Rhodes.

Aptly titled Roger Ballen’s Theatre of the Mind, the show will feature new work inspired by the SCA site’s history as a mental asylum. The new work will be on show in the underground cells so bring your best scream and a spooky ghost preparedness kit too.

Although Ballen has spent five decades pursuing photography and travelling extensively through South Africa, he’s best known by the younger generation for the Die Antwoord video clip for 'I Fink U Freaky'. Ballen collaborated with Die Antwoord to produce a clip that brings his still-life photography work to life and references elements of his unique, bleak and uncanny imagery. The clip has been viewed in excess of 76 million times, pushing Ballen into favour with digital natives and Die Antwoord fans everywhere.

But outside of this wildly successful contemporary collab, Ballen is an old-school film photographer and possibly the last of his kind. His work is shot in black and white because he believes it to be an abstraction on the way we naturally perceive the world (that is, in colour). Often photographers have an affinity for reflecting the world around them, turning the lens outward and sometimes hiding behind the lens. Interestingly, Ballen has frequently noted that the motivation for his work is a journey of self-discovery, a "fundamentally… psychological and existential journey".

Images: Roger Ballen, still from 'I Fink U Freeky' video, Die Antwoord 2012; Caged, 2011; Mirrored, 2012; Bewitched, 2012. Images courtesy of the artist.