Roger Ballen: Brutal, Tender, Human, Animal

Roger Ballen’s exhibition Brutal, Tender, Human, Animal was a powerful and disturbing exhibition showing a wide range of photography from 1983 to 2007. As Shaune Lakin, Director of the MGA states "Roger Ballen is one of the world's most important photographers. As with all great works of art, Ballen's photographs are at once beautiful and challenging: they raise serious questions about ethics and social responsibility, class and race. This is a rare opportunity to see some of the most powerful images produced in our lifetime."

Ballen’s photographs show his experience in the slums of South African. Ballan was trained as a geologist and taught himself photography in his spare time which soon turned into his career. In the 1970’s, while looking for a potential mining site he began to photograph the houses and people he met. He then travelled to some of the poorest areas and built a relationship with those who lived there which enabled him to get the photos. His images appear not to have an awful lot of depth, they appear to be taken straight forward and there are very little shadows.

The exhibition was rather spacious and a vast majority of the images were small, so to really see the disturbing features in the images you to go up close to view them. A photograph that really stood out for me what titled “ Dresie and Casie twins” which was taken in 1993. This picture shows two very tall men, with well defined features, they almost look mutated. Their ears really stick out to the sides, and have more of a square and tall head. They are both drooling, but are wearing white shirts which show that they have been worn for quite some time without being cleaned, if they can be cleaned. The also seem to have a judgmental stare, as though they are fending off outsiders. The photograph is black and white as it can show the use of line, shape and a small amount of contrast in the photograph considerably better than colour and it can reflect what the society in South Africa is like, very bleak.

I like the exhibition for its shock value, but didn’t like the images of dead dogs and rats. Mainly because I have pet rats and have seen one die in my arms, and my dog whom I had since I was 5 years old had to be put down the day before we went to this exhibition bought up some emotions that one would not like to feel, ever.