“Roger Ballen.! drawing meets photography” opened at Museum Gugging on the 25th of September. Curated by Nina Ansperger, the photography-based exhibition acts to shift the focus on drawing as a central element of Ballen’s work. The exhibition presents photographs, drawings, sculptures, etching and hand-worked Polaroids that reflect the importance of the drawing within Ballen’s decades-long career.
More than 80 large format works dating from 1998-2024 are featured in the exhibition, including recent works in colour that progress from Ballen’s canonical use of black and white photography.
Six series represent his central work in black and white photography from 1998 to 2017: Outland documents social change in rural South Africa over the course of almost 20 years. Theatre of Apparitions (presented as part of the South Africa pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024) displays Ballen’s technical talent. Staged in an abandoned prison, he used spray paint and sharp tools to create images in the style of cave painting and documented them photographically. Shadow Chamber brings animals and people into cell-like spaces and blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction. Through the same surreal lens, Boarding House merges people, animals and objects. The Asylum of the Birds series (also enriched with drawings) combines portraits with still lifes. Lastly, Roger’s Rats uses staged images of real and illustrated rats to question the Western symbolism of the rat as the epitome of evil. These drawings on walls, cardboard or paper with chalk, charcoal or found materials are fleeting and ephemeral, often only surviving in the photograph.
From the years 2018 to 2024 are Ballen’s color photographs, which are also characterized by an intimate relationship between drawing and photography, staging and the restrained use of colour. A highlight of the exhibition is the creation of the moving sculpture, Drawing Man. It shows the artist himself drawing at a table. On site, it creates the same atmosphere that is also present in his photographs.
The drawings, etchings, Polaroids and sculpture on display show Ballen’s ongoing development of his photographic practice. In addition to the exhibition, there is an arts education programme, a reading corner and video works – offering many opportunities for a deeper understanding of the artist. The exhibition closes on the 16th of February, 2026.
Museum Gugging
Am Campus 2
3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria
https://www.museumgugging.at/en
