Roger Ballen: In Contemplation

Roger Ballen: In Contemplation

Roger Ballen • Phaidon

ISBN-10: 071485767X · ISBN-13: 978‑0714857671 · 2008 · 1st Edition

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Cover quality: good

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A unique opportunity to own a limited edition silver gelatin print by Roger Ballen In Contemplation the chaos has abated, and we witness a clean shirtless man holding a white duck to his face. Sitting in a man-made ditch he appears to be deep in conversation with the duck, listening intently to its story. An electrical cable is pinned neatly to the wall, but it seems not to be coming from, nor leading, anywhere. As always in the boarding house, the only consistency is the dirt and dust of its abandonment. Roger Ballen's (b.1950) work focuses on a strange and alluring place that he calls the Boarding House, where he directs his subjects in a unique collaboration of imagination and reality. Toying with fantasy, Ballen's transient compositions create a question mark over our preconceptions of photography, creating a theatre out of the building blocks of documentary. Boarding House captures an imaginary space of transient residence, of comings and goings, focusing on the evocative drawings and sculptural objects as well as the people and animals found there captures an imaginary space of transient residence, of comings and goings, focusing on the evocative drawings and sculptural objects as well as the people and animals found there.

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