Freaky But I Liked It Alot

I was excited as I was off to see Roger Ballen Shadow Land: Photographs 1983-2011 at Manchester Art Gallery. There's been mixed reviews including in The Guardian, with some people struggling with the later surreal images in the exhibition. I wanted to see for myself though.

Roger Ballen is an American photographer who moved to South Africa to work. I'm relatively new to the world of photography, but it's easy to see why this work is internationally acclaimed. Stunning composition, all square prints and using silver gelatine or archival pigment prints, the former process being my favourite. Ballen, a self-confessed perfectionist may have been pissed off though; Front Door mounting was squint and there were a few other imperfections in framing of other prints.

Like many photographers, his introspective journey started off documentary moving on to a very surreal art style. One of his most famous images Dressie and Casie, Twins was far better hung on a wall than viewed in a magazine or on the internet....and you could see the dribble coming out of Dressie's mouth. The photographer's sense of humour really came out in Elias coming out from John's bed and Eugene on the phone with cat. Fellow blippers who insist on taking pictures of their own cats should take note of Man holding cat. The cat's expression is a priceless portraiture.

Tommy Sampson and mask was my favourite of the whole exhibition. It just had such wonderful contrast; dark background, white mask, black kid and white man . The silver gelatine gave so much texture and it demonstrated why Ballen has used the same printer for the last 30 years without exception. The composition of the lizard with its tail chopped off was stunning. The Asylum body of work was surreal, amusing, freaky but I like them a lot! Onlookers is nuts, naive ....childlike and insane!

Ballen is a true artist. Some say that his descriptions of his own work is a bit pretentious but he's making some important points. He argues that the almost feral, deprived people he focussed on in his documentary work are incredibly honest people. They present humans as they really are....scary, violent, loving, funny, freaky and sad but don't try to hide it like most of us. They wear a thin mask whereas wealthier more educated people wear a thicker mask and simply hide their feelings and emotions more. All of humanity has a dark side and Ballen used his surreal work to explore the deepest parts of his own mind. I need another look to see if I can understand what messages he's trying to convey.

Die Antwoord's video here was directed by him!

The work is also highly political, especially in the context of the current economic climate. One of his white subjects commented how much worse things had got since De Klerk left power and apartheid ended in South Africa. My Guardian reader side would say ....yeah yeah....but for the poorer economically deprived whites in SA it is true. Poverty, no jobs, crime, fear and no way out. Still a highly divided society.....is it to do with the colour of skin? I think not!

The end of apartheid will always be positive and there is no place in the world for racism, but there have been casualties; Ballen shows that these casualties should not be forgotten. He also asked a good philosophical question: Do we make chaos out of order or order out of chaos? Some say that Ballen has a huge ego; however, my guess is that it's probably a confidence with getting older and understanding the world better through losing his ego.

I had put aside 90 mins for the exhibition, but ran out of time. I will have to go back. I just seemed to understand the Ballen but need to explore his surreal, abstract side of his work more!

My blip today was as close as I could get. Other piccies from today here

It was then a rush to the Cornerhouse to see Kevin McDonald's documentary film on Bob Marley. Brill film and really worth seeing. Then it was off to North Tea as I've run out of coffee.....gahhh they had run out of bags to sell! Disaster so it'll have to be mail order this week. Good luck to Al who has his first finals philosophy exam tomorrow....he was utterly nervous but I get the feeling he'll do well.