Roger Ballen, who was born in New York in 1950 and now lives in Johannesburg, is one of the most influential and important photographic artists of the 21st century. His strange and extreme works confront the viewers and challenge them to come with him on a journey into their own minds as he explores the deeper recesses of his own. Through the 1990s, he developed a photographic style he describes as “Ballenesque.” Over the past decade, Ballen has created powerful artworks in which the line between fantasy and reality becomes increasingly blurred. He employs drawings, painting, collage, and sculptural techniques to create elaborate sets. This exhibition consists of two parts that define and enrich one another. The walls are hung with photographs from Ballen’s last analogue series, while the center of the space is dominated by a shack, a poor dwelling for people on the margins of society of the kind often featured in Ballen’s work. The exhibit is the perfect match to Jean Tinguely’s “Mengele Totentanz,” (Dance of death), close to which Ballen’s work will be exhibited.

Website
tinguely.ch/en/exhibitions/exhibitions/2023/ballen.html

Where
Museum Tinguely
Paul Sacher-Anlage 2
4002 Basel

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