Roger Ballen: Spirits and Spaces

Having previously expressed no interest in color photography, Roger Ballen was inspired to engage with the medium after receiving a Leica SL camera as a gift in 2016. Opening to the potential of color in his work, Ballen used light in creative ways, exploring new avenues of experimentation. Spirits and Spaces eloquently captures the absurd and bizarre world of Roger Ballen, where animals and art brut–like drawings dominate, and humanity is reduced to obscure figures or fragmented body parts.

The color images in Spirits and Spaces, created in conjunction with Ballen’s artistic director, Marguerite Rossouw, were produced in a claustrophobic space, constructed of worn, wallpapered wooden panels and with minimalistic lighting. Here, in this dense, oppressive environment, Ballen creates what might be seen by many as a world that is unexplainable in words: one in which absurdity, chaos, comedy, and tragedy apparently exist side by side.

Both a visual revelation and an artistic evolution by one of contemporary photography’s most unique voices, Spirits and Spaces will be an essential and much-anticipated photobook for all Roger Ballen fans.