About The Work
Roger Ballen's work focuses on a strange and alluring place that he calls the Boarding House, where he directs his subjects in a unique collaboration of imagination and reality. Toying with fantasy, Ballen's transient compositions create a question mark over our preconceptions of photography, creating a theatre out of the building blocks of documentary.
In Contemplation the chaos has abated, and we witness a clean shirtless man holding a white duck to his face. Sitting in a man-made ditch he appears to be deep in conversation with the duck, listening intently to its story. An electrical cable is pinned neatly to the wall, but it seems not to be coming from, nor leading, anywhere. As always in the boarding house, the only consistency is the dirt and dust of its abandonment.
Boarding House shows an imaginary space of transient residence, of coming and goings, of people sheltering in a strange place they are using for their immediate survival, furnished with objects that are necessarily for an elementary existence as well as mysterious items whose significance is impossible to discern. Remnants function as physical symbols of events that have occurred in this space; broken pieces of a functional reality exist as the leftovers of scenarios that were played out here. In his introductory essay to the book, veteran photography curator David Travis addresses this new body of work. Having evolved from and developed out of Roger Ballen's previous work, Boarding House differs in that the photographs have become even more formally sophisticated, and the sense of collaboration between the artist and his subjects increasingly evident.
—Courtesy of Phaidon
About Roger Ballen
From The Magazine
Photograph
Silver gelatin print with special edition hardcover book in slipcase
16.50 x 16.00 in
41.9 x 40.6 cm
This work is signed and numbered by the artist.
About The Work
Roger Ballen's work focuses on a strange and alluring place that he calls the Boarding House, where he directs his subjects in a unique collaboration of imagination and reality. Toying with fantasy, Ballen's transient compositions create a question mark over our preconceptions of photography, creating a theatre out of the building blocks of documentary.
In Contemplation the chaos has abated, and we witness a clean shirtless man holding a white duck to his face. Sitting in a man-made ditch he appears to be deep in conversation with the duck, listening intently to its story. An electrical cable is pinned neatly to the wall, but it seems not to be coming from, nor leading, anywhere. As always in the boarding house, the only consistency is the dirt and dust of its abandonment.
Boarding House shows an imaginary space of transient residence, of coming and goings, of people sheltering in a strange place they are using for their immediate survival, furnished with objects that are necessarily for an elementary existence as well as mysterious items whose significance is impossible to discern. Remnants function as physical symbols of events that have occurred in this space; broken pieces of a functional reality exist as the leftovers of scenarios that were played out here. In his introductory essay to the book, veteran photography curator David Travis addresses this new body of work. Having evolved from and developed out of Roger Ballen's previous work, Boarding House differs in that the photographs have become even more formally sophisticated, and the sense of collaboration between the artist and his subjects increasingly evident.
—Courtesy of Phaidon
About Roger Ballen
From The Magazine
The silver gelatin print was printed in 2008 in an edition of 50 plus 5 artist's proofs.
- The quoted dimensions are for the sheet size. The image size is 14.25" x 14.375". The box size is 18" x 17.375".
- Ships in 10 to 14 business days from United Kingdom. Framed works ship in 14 to 18 business days from New York.
- This work is final sale and not eligible for return.
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