Tonight Gallery Photographer.ru official opening of the exhibition of French photographer Roger Ballen

tonight in the gallery Photographer.ru (bottling, CSI VINZAVOD, 4 th Syromyatnicheskiy per., 1, p. 6) will officially open the exhibition of French photographer Roger Ballen.

Roger Ballen (Roger Ballen) - one of the most extravagant living classics. His work he calls a "documentary fiction» (documentary fiction); they are an organic alloy documentalism, symbolism and abstract aesthetics.

Roger Ballen's career can be described as a movement from reportage photography to the subjective documentary. After studying at UC Berkeley in 1972, Ballen went a long trip hitchhiking around the world. Thus was created his first book (Boyhood, 1979). This and the following of his book - "The small towns of South Africa» (Dorps: Small Towns of South Africa, 1986) and Villages in South Africa »(Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa, 1994) - although they have already a note to unreality, still well within the definition of "street photography": it captures a black and white film (whose loyalty, like the square format retains today) landscapes, architectural details, passers-by. During this period he was heavily influenced by surrealist aesthetics André Kertész, who was friends with his mother, once an employee agency Magnum, and then the owner of galleries in New York. Incidentally, during work on the "City" and "village" main occupation Ballena was by no means picture, and mineral exploration. Geologist by training, he spent many years wandering the deserted corners of the African continent in search of gold, incidentally removing it attracted the attention of strange objects. Criticism of the first experiences of the future met with a cool classic.

However, the published soon, in 2001, the album "Backyards» (Outland, 2001) was voted "Best Photo Album of the Year" at Photo Espana and brought its author has several prestigious prizes and international fame.

In the backyard, as well as in their subsequent "dark room» (Shadow Chamber, 2005) and especially in the rooming house »(Boarding House, 2009), Ballen increasingly moving away from recognizable scenes, drawing inspiration from the pool unconscious. Now, his idols and teachers are no longer our colleagues, and the artists and writers - the surrealist Joan Miro, the founder of the style Brut, Jean Dubuffet, one of the founders of the theater of the absurd Samuel Beckett. His camera captures he himself has created whimsical composition of animals, objects, parts of the human body and graffiti; Ballen passionate game textures, volume and tone. Critics are increasingly compare him with nightmares, stressing the importance of raised Balleny social issues, they talk about frightening psychological experiments.

Exhibiting in September in Moscow "Furnished Rooms" - the fruit of almost five years Research Balleny very bottom of life as a habit-worldly sense (in the frame interior real rooming house in the suburbs of Johannesburg and its inhabitants: fugitive criminals, impoverished miners, different types of antisocial) and in the existential sense. The photographer says that work on a series of pushed him to such dark sides of his own consciousness, whose existence he had previously had no idea. These photos, while technically fictional, talking about life and breaks in human lives and psyche more than any "direct" documentation.

Ballena works are on permanent exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York York), the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Museum Stedeliyk (Amsterdam) and many other prominent public and private collections.

All work presented at the exhibition, you can purchase at the gallery Photographer.ru.

for the public exhibition is open from September 16 to November 28, 2010 (Tuesday - Sunday: 12.00 - 20.00)

16 September 19.00 - 21.00, an open meeting with Roger Ballen Catherine Tar (attendance by appointment and accreditation).

Source : Press Release Gallery Photographer.ru