Ballenesque Roger Ballen: A Retrospective

Roger Ballen

Publié par Thames & Hudson, le 10 février 2022

372 pages

Résumé

Roger Ballen (b. 1950) is one of the most important and original art photographers working today. Best known for his probing, often challenging images that exist in a space between painting, drawing, installation and photography, he has achieved global recognition with a series of startling monographs and exhibitions spanning some five decades. The artist's only comprehensive retrospective, Ballenesque takes the reader on a visual, chronological tour of the photographer's entire oeuvre. This revised, compact edition has been brought fully up-to-date, and includes a new chapter that presents previously unpublished work from the artist's recent adoption of colour photography. At the heart of the book is Ballen's own exploration of his style - of those particular qualities that make his work so compellingly his own. Featuring reflective and engaging texts by Ballen himself, the book offers a distinctly personal account of the photographer's career to date, including rare and privileged insights into Ballen's photographic practice and the major influences that have helped shape his world view. Each of the key stages in Ballen's creative joumey is explored, from his first serious use of a camera in the late 1960s to the expansion of his artistic vision in Outland (2001), and from the refinement of his unique aesthetic in the first decades of the 21st century to his dramatic return to pastel drawing during the Covid-19 pandemic - ajoumey that, for Ballen, has been both an outward and an inward exploration of the self. With an introduction by cultural theorist and critic Robert J. C. Young, Ballenesque provides not only an entirely new way of seeing Ballen's work for those already familiar with his career, but also a comprehensive introduction for those encountering his photographs for the first time.