Exhibitions
Roger Ballen's unsettling universe bursts onto the scene in Ghent with a radical immersion into the human psyche
The unsettling and profoundly unique universe of Roger Ballen lands at the Museum Dr. Guislain from April 4 to September 13 with the exhibition Roger Ballen. Drawing meets Photography , a proposal that invites you to immerse yourself in one of the most radical perspectives in contemporary art.
Entering this exhibition is like crossing a threshold into the human psyche. Its images—confusing, recognizable, absurd, and yet disturbingly real—are not simply observed: they directly engage the viewer. Ballen constructs scenes that inhabit an ambiguous space between illusion and reality, the conscious and the unconscious, where everything seems unstable and yet profoundly tangible.
Born in New York in 1950 and based in South Africa for decades, Ballen is considered one of the most influential photographers of the 21st century. Over more than fifty years of work, he has developed a unique visual language, so recognizable that it has been described as "ballenesque ." His work transcends disciplinary boundaries, occupying a hybrid space between photography, drawing, installation, and painting.
His creative process departs from the classical idea of photography as a capture of reality. Ballen doesn't go out in search of images: he constructs them from scratch. He works in closed, controlled, almost claustrophobic spaces, where he arranges objects, human figures, animals, and found elements in carefully orchestrated compositions. In these settings, drawing plays a fundamental role: primitive strokes, nervous lines, and almost childlike forms erupt onto walls and surfaces, integrating into the photographic image and blurring the boundaries between the physical and the mental.
This constant dialogue between photography and drawing transforms each work into a psychological space rather than a mere representation. His images don't tell stories in the conventional sense, but rather act as triggers for sensations, like fragments of a shared subconscious. In them, the viewer not only observes, but is drawn into the cracks of their own inner world.
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