Summary: | Photographer Roger Ballen (New York 1950) presents his first solo exhibition in Chile. With more than 30 photographs in black and white, and under the curatorship of Montserrat Rojas Corradi, the show comprises stunning portraits mainly of individuals and animals, in images that are directly linked to the aesthetic of the strange, the unpleasant and the dark. As well as having a vast production of photographic works, Ballen, who has lived in South Africa since 1971, has worked in the art direction of music videos, which keep his same visual language, like for example the work for "I fink u freeky" for the band Die Antwoord. His work, known throughout the world, is part of important collections, like the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; Berkeley Art Museum in California; MoMA in New York; the Tate Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, among other renown institutions. ±El trabajo de Ballen interviene el estatuto de ±la verdad en la fotografía, transformándola en un híbrido que nos perturba y fascina al mismo tiempo. En sus imágenes conviven objetos en desuso, animales abandonados y sujetos catalogados como rarosʺ. Estos son, para la mayoría, sinónimo de lo descartable o desechable, característica que Roger Ballen reutiliza como una suerte de excusa para plasmar a través de la imagen los despojosʺ de la sociedad de consumo. Él reutiliza lo que el poder y la hegemonía desechanʺ. Su imagen, al reivindicar a cada uno de estos excomulgados de la sociedad, se transforma así en una ecología de la memoria.--Montserrat Rojas Corradi, Curadora de la muestra ±The Place of the Ballenesque, de Roger Ballen.
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