1. Installation view of the exhibition "Roger Ballen. Call of the Void" at the Museum Tinguely, Basel, 2023. © Courtesy Roger Ballen. 2023 Museum Tinguely, Basel, Photo:Felix Scharff.
Roger Ballen. Call of the Void - An hommage
Until the end of October 2023, the Museum Tinguely in Basel presents an exhibition of the American born photographer Roger Ballen. While the exhibition is part of a series of shows responding to Jean Tinguely’s late work "Mengele—Dance of Death", such as "Anouk Kruithof. Universal Tongue", which focussed on the theme of dance and "Bruce Conner. Light out of Darkness" which focus on the apocalyptical aspect of the work of Tinguely, this time Roger Ballen focus on the term of installations and the figures in the works of the two artists.
A few words about Roger Ballen
and his practice
Roger Ballen was born on April 11, 1950, in New York City from Irving Ballen and Adrienne Ballen (born Miller), both of them coming from Jewish origin. While his father was one of the founding partners of McLaughlin, Stern, his mother was a member of the photo agency Magnum from 1963 to 1967 prior to opening the Photography House Gallery with Inge Bondi in New York City in 1968.
Thus, from an early age, Roger was fascinated by the photographer of his time, which he meets thought the work of his mom: Andre Kertesz, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Elliot Erwitt, Bruce Davidson and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Beside his love for photography, at the age of 13, he received his first camera, and was soon after employed for a first commercial job of photographing McDonald's, Mamaroneck, New York. But his family thought he needed a proper education just un case something goes wrong in his career. Thus, he studied psychology at the University of California, and during that time became acquainted with the Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious", the Theatre of the Absurd and existential philosophers, such as Sartre and Heidegger, which will lead him to his first important commissions such as for the New York Times in 1969 and to create his first film "III wind" in 1972.
After the death of his mother Adrienne in 1973, he came back to art. Thus, he joined the Art Students of League of New York, where he explored numerous style of paintings and art making such as art brut and primitivism.
A year later, he left for a five-year journey, that would take him by land from Cairo to Cape Town, Istanbul to New Guinea until 1978. This five year trip will creat a five year long series of works, where he took photographs of enigmatic men against dramatic surfaces of shrines, temples and markets. The will lead to the creation of his first book entitled "Boyhood", which was a series of images of boys that Ballen had encountered while seeking to recreate his childhood.
During his trip he also met his future wife in South Africa, Lynda Moross an artist, paper-maker and art teacher. At this time of his life, he went back to school and enrolled at the Colorado School of Mines in 1978, where he received in PhD in Mineral Economics in 1981. And he decided to move out from the US to settle in Johannesburg in 1982, where he worked as a self-employed mining entrepreneur until 2010.
The "Ballenesque" aesthetic
The "Ballenesque" aesthetic, the contraction between Ballen and burlesque was a term created by Robert Young (American actor), who identified four elements, that, in their "various shifting combinations and relations, together make up the constituent factors of the -esque factor.": prehensile portraits of the underprivileged, windowless walls, recurring sets of "aleatory images" and dark junctures of disjunction.
But the aesthetic also come from well-known photographers such as Cartier Bresson, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus and Elliot Erwitt. And absurdist theatre, outsider art, art brut, nativism, photographic surrealism and the photographic grotesque, and artistic/philosophical work, such as that of Beckett, Kafka, Jung and Artaud.
The goal and the different
sections of the exhibition
What better introduction to this exhibition then a quote of the artist himself: " My show that I have chosen to title «Call of the Void» is an attempt to come to terms with what I believe to be the most central questions in human existence namely, where did we come from? What are we here for? And where do we go once we die? Whilst I do not claim to provide answers or even questions to these most profound and difficult issues, it is my hope that my exhibition will challenge the viewer’s perceptions and consequently set up a process of self-examination leading to a more inquisitive state of self-consciousness."
The visual representation of this wish is a three part exhibition. In the corridor linking the stairs of the museum to the exhibition room, the artist presents two videos: "Roger the Rat" from 2020 and "Ballenesque" from 2017.
While you enter the exhibition space, the room was redesigned with an intriguing and big house and a series of photographs from Ballen’s last analogue series..
The artist tells us about the house in the center of the exhibition : "As one approaches the shelter in the middle of the exhibition-space, one is surrounded by black and white photographs that I have taken from the series Asylum of the Birds and Roger's Rats. In a simplistic sense, these rats and birds have symbolized good and evil, darkness and light, throughout human history. Birds link the heavens to the earth and rats are unfairly associated with dirt, disease, and darkness. Each species of animal brings with its own mythology, and when you bring that mythology into a photograph, it offers unlimited possibilities for creating deeper meanings relevant to the human condition.
The center of the exhibition is dominated by a structure with a mysterious door. Entering this space, the two-dimensional photographs are now expanded into a three dimensional world. The worn, broken and textured walls of the interior reveal a Theatre of the Ballenesque in which the human figures represent absurdity, comedy, and tragedy. Once inside, one is confronted with haunting depictions, sounds, and objects forcing the viewers to face their own void."
The exhibition catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue published by Kehrer Verlag. The book will be in English, and it will feature texts by Roger Ballen, Andres Pardey and a foreword by Roland Wetzel. The price of the exhibition catalogue will be 35 CHF.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Museum Tinguely
Date: 19.4.2023 – 29.10.2023
Curators: Andres Pardey, Roger Ballen and Marguerite Rossouw
Ticket: Available on the website of the Museum Tinguely OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Museum Tinguely
Museum Tinguely
Paul Sacher-Anlage 2 - P.O Box 3255
CH-4002 Basel
Phone: +41 61 681 93 20
Mail: basel.infostinguely@roche.com