Shadow Chamber

by Ballen, Roger; Sobieszek, Robert A; Newell, Lucy

• ISBN13: 9780714844664
• ISBN10: 0714844667
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-01
• Publisher: Phaidon Press

Summary

"Best known for his striking photographs of people on the fringes of South African society, Roger Ballen makes images that are ambiguous and often disturbing, but also shot through with flashes of dark humour. The photographs in Shadow Chamber blur the boundaries between documentary photography and art forms such as painting, theatre and sculpture, challenging the ways in which we perceive the 'reality' of photography. Ballen's images are completely honest, yet also fabricated." "The mysterious, cell-like rooms that Ballen photographs are actual places, but they are unsettling and strange, logical but impossible: their walls are covered with scribbled drawings, stains and dangling wires, the floors are strewn with bizarre props and artefacts. Dogs, rabbits and kittens wander into the frame or are stuffed into unlikely containers. The humans and animals in Ballen's photographs appear isolated and lost, yet strangely empowered at the same time. The resulting images are allegories of lived experiences and surreal takes on human destiny." "In his introduction to Shadow Chamber, curator Robert A. Sobieszek analyzes Ballen's unique approach and sets his work in the wider context of the history of documentary photography and critical theory."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Robert A Sobieszek (1943-2005) was Curator of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Before moving to Los Angeles in 1990, he served in various curatorial positions, including Director of Photographic Collections at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. He organized over 50 exhibitions and authored 10 books, including LACMA's Robert Smithson: Photo Works and The Camera I: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection.

Born in New York City in 1950, Roger Ballen has lived and worked in Johannesburg, South Africa for almost 30 years. The son of a picture editor at Magnum, he worked as a geologist and mining consultant before starting his own photographic career by documenting the small villages of rural South Africa and their isolated inhabitants. His images are both powerful social statements and disturbing psychological studies. Ballen's previous book Outland (2001), also published by Phaidon, is indisputably one of the most extraordinary photographic documents of the late twentieth century. He is also the author of Boarding House, published by Phaidon in 2009.