The Theatre of Apparitions

Roger Ballen is one of the most original image-makers of our times. Always seeking to push the boundaries of photographic practice he has created an aesthetic and artistic vision unlike any other contemporary photographer. The Theatre of Apparitions is Ballen’s groundbreaking new monograph. With a career spanning over four decades, Roger Ballen is best known for his psychologically powerful and masterfully composed images that exist in a space between painting, drawing, installation and photography. The Theatre of Apparitions is both a departure from his existing oeuvre and the culmination of his unique aesthetic linking image-making and theatrical performance. Separated into seven chapters or ‘acts’, these Ballenesque images take readers on a deep journey into their subconscious.
Inspired by the sight of hand-drawn carvings on blacked-out windows in an abandoned women’s prison, Ballen started to experiment using different spray paints on glass and then ‘drawing on’ or removing the paint with a sharp object to let natural light through. The results are like prehistoric cave-paintings: the black, dimensionless spaces on the glass are canvases onto which Ballen carves his thoughts and emotions. Fossil-like facial forms and dismembered body parts coexist uncomfortably with vaporous, ghost-like shadows – these images have the capacity to shock, inspire, amuse and even elate viewers. Timeless and innovative, earthly and otherworldly, physical and spiritual, his work transcends all traditional concepts of photography.
Author
Roger Ballen is the recipient numerous awards, including ‘Photographer of the Year’ at Rencontres d’Arles in 2002 and ‘Photography Book of the Year’ for Outland at Photo España in 2001. Thames & Hudson published his monograph Asylum of the Birds in 2014.