By Cur8.art
We were so fortunate to have sat down with Dr Roger Ballen during the recent Investec Cape Town Art Fair. The artist who is notorious for his jarring and psychological explorations of the subconscious mind has been invited to form part of the South African Pavilion at the upcoming 59th Venice Biennale. Alongside Lebohang Kganye and Phumulani Ntuli, Ballen will be showcasing his work The Theatre of the Apparitions on the global stage, in what is often described as the “art Olympics”. The theme for this year’s Biennale Arte is The Milk of Dreams – fittingly derived from surrealist artist Leonora Carrington’s children’s book. The South African stand was conceptualised around the sub-theme of “Into the Light.” – a most appropriate invitation for Ballenesque imagery.
It feels quite fitting that the title for the Biennale Arte “The Milk of Dreams” follows the writing of surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Watching ‘The Theater of the Apparitions’ your work is deeply psychological, dreamlike and theatrical. Were you intrigued by the title?
“Well yes, because the pictures (from The Theatre of the Apparitions) could be seen as primal dreams and I thought that the imagery would be perfect for the theme. Art is beyond words. The Rorschach test showed us that art has the power to reflect our subconscious mind, some, more so than others. A visual is not verbal. If a picture has to be explained in words, it’s a bad picture.”
‘The Theatre of the Apparitions’ was created in 2016, has your personal connection and the public’s reading of the work altered following the global pandemic?
“Good Art has something timeless about it. Art made in Egypt, thousands of years ago, and Cave Drawings, they still have a power to them. Art has to, in a way, catch time itself. If art only has a relevance to a specific timeframe, they’re not necessarily timeless.”
I’ve read that the technique you developed in this body of work/series of images was inspired by drawings you had seen on a window in a women’s prison – what was it about those drawings that resonated with you? Was it simply the way that they had been drawn onto the surface of the window, or was it more than that?
“Yes, I was busy with the Shadow Chamber Series and came across this room in the women’s prison. The windows were stained black, maybe from a fire, I don’t know, but they were scratched into with a sharp object, and it was dark inside and the light shone through the drawings. It struck me, and I was able to use it as inspiration for years and years of evolution in my art. It was this sort of act of spontaneity, and then you take a photo of it. So what you’re looking at are 3 things: number 1 a photograph, number 2 a drawing and number 3 a light box, so it becomes an installation-photo-drawing.”
You are taking part in the initiative for the nation-wide schools art competition in conjunction with the Biennale, what are you most looking forward to in regards to this?
“We want younger people in the arts to see what more mature people in the business do, I think it’s very needed in our country. It’s such a pleasure and I hope many young people will participate. Photography has changed so much over the past 5 decades or so. The 50th anniversary of the Woodstock festival was 2 years ago and the NY Times did a 4 page feature on my unpublished Woodstock pictures and if you look at the Woodstock crowds, no one was taking pictures. Now if you go to a festival, everyone is living the experience through their phones. Billions of pictures are taken every day.”
What struck us about Dr Ballen was his gentle demeanour and his thoughtful responses to our curiosity. It’s a great honour to have spent a morning chatting to an undeniably visually sensitive mind, one that can conjure up and reflect our own nightmares at the drop of a hat.
We wish the entire South African Pavilion team the best of luck with their artful efforts for this year’s Venice Biennale.
The Venice Biennale takes place from 23 April – 27 November 2022.