Temporary Exhibitions
Considered one of the most influential and important photographic artists of the 21st century, Roger Ballen has been developing a unique artistic practice for over five decades, one that has redefined the boundaries of contemporary photography. Internationally recognized, the artist has created an unmistakable visual language, integrating drawing, painting, collage and sculptural techniques into elaborate installations, giving rise to a hybrid aesthetic deeply rooted in photography.
His works, strange, provocative and often extreme, confront the viewer with the limits of their own perception and invite them on a journey into the depths of the subconscious, as the artist explores the most hidden areas of his own inner world.
Over the past fifty years, his distinctive style has been built around the square format and a remarkably expressive black-and-white image. His earliest exhibited photographs retain a connection with the tradition of documentary photography; however, beginning in the 1990s, Ballen developed what he himself defines as “documentary fiction”.
After 2000, the boundary between reality and imagination became increasingly permeable. The artist turned to drawing, painting, collage and sculptural elements to construct complex settings in which photography became part of a theatrical and symbolic universe. The human figure almost completely disappears, replaced by photographs transformed into props, fragments of dolls or mannequins. When the human figure is present, it appears fragmented – hands, feet or mouths emerging disturbingly from walls or ceilings. These scenarios, often improvised, are animated by the unpredictable behavior of animals, whose ambiguous presence becomes essential to the meaning of the images.
In his artistic practice, Roger Ballen has increasingly explored the possibilities of dialogue between photography and drawing, expanding his repertoire and enriching his visual language. The integration of drawing into photography and video works represents not only an important contribution to the evolution of contemporary art, but also a profound reflection on the human condition and the creative potential of imagination.
Roger Ballen is the author of more than 25 volumes published by prestigious publishing houses around the world, and his works are part of the collections of more than 50 of the most important international museums.
The artist has also created a series of critically acclaimed short films presented in numerous exhibitions, which complement and develop the visual universe of his photographic series. In 2022, Roger Ballen represented South Africa at the Venice Art Biennale.
He is the founder and executive director of the Inside Out Centre for the Arts and the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography, both based in Johannesburg. Through these institutions, he promotes dialogue between art, education and society, contributing to an understanding of themes relevant both to Africa and to the international context.
In September 2025, Thames & Hudson published Spirits and Spaces, the artist’s first color volume, which reveals a new dimension of his visual universe.
In November 2025, the Italian publisher Postcart published Inferno, a volume bringing together sixty-eight photographs created by Roger Ballen for the thirty-four cantos of Inferno from Dante Alighieri’s work, in the English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867). The volume includes a foreword by Didi Bozzini and was created in collaboration with Marguerite Rossouw.
