Outland (Monographs) [Hardcover]

Roger Ballen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 26, 2001 | Series: Monographs

"Outland" is the third installment in a trilogy of works and the conclusion of a journey begun by "Dorps" and "Platteland". Incorporating a small selection of Ballen's photographs from the 1980s and early 1990s, but dominated by new work from the late 1990s, his work has progressed to a new level entirely. Continuing to work with poor South African whites, now mainly in the Guateng urban area at the heart of South Africa (the cities to which many poor whites have migrated following the end of apartheid), Ballen's portraits have become disturbing and personal, he has begun to weave his own narratives out of recurring visual themes -animals, masks and chaotic electric wiring - the result is a collection of strangely posed tableaux showing a world of alienation and poverty, contradicting notions of white supremacy for which South Africa has become infamous.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You have never seen photographs like these before--black-and-white images of people who seem damaged and defective, yet oddly sympathetic, posed in ways that suggest the pitiless workings of heredity and environment. Using a shallow, stagelike space, Roger Ballen gets in close to his subjects--men, women, and children living in remote parts of South Africa.

A woman in a soiled dress shouts at a man whose back is turned--or at the barking dog rearing over his shoulder. A plump fellow in a security guard's uniform stares, wide-eyed, at the camera while one of his meaty hands pins a tiny puppy against the wall. On a patch of raked dirt, a sleeping baby in underpants lies across the intersection of two mysterious tangled lengths of string.

These photographs pose blacks and whites together in ways that suggest enigmatic playfulness or wordless acceptance. In one image, a white woman, blind in one eye, with a face like a rotten apple, wraps her arms around two pug dogs. Next to her, a black woman in a smock stands patiently. Above them, large portraits of children (where are they now?) hang on the dirty wall. It is a scene of care and neglect, loss and resignation.

Ballen's current work occupies an odd niche between documentary and staged photography. The sitters are real people, seemingly in their own environments, and the photographer dignifies them by using their proper names in the captions. But he poses them with live and inanimate objects--a fish, a hammer, a broken baby carriage--in ways that heighten the tension and ambivalence of their situations. Even electrical wire strung on the wall creates a nervous force field. It's as if Diane Arbus and Robert Frank had joined forces with a master of German expressionist theater. --Cathy Curtis

About the Author

Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950. His mother was a picture editor and Ballen grew up connected to the characters of New York's photography scene. On leaving school, he spent several years travelling before settling in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1982, where he established a practice as a geologist, prospecting mineral deposits across Southern Africa. While travelling to outlying regions of South Africa, he also made photographs. He published two books of his photographs: Dorps: Small Towns of South Africa in 1986, and Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa in 1994. Dorps was a poetic, even romantic portrait of South Africa's village life - a world of old houses, trading stores, folk artefacts and humble people - a book which followed firmly in the documentary photography tradition of Walker Evans. The photographs in Platteland, however, were much stronger, uncovering the world of poor whites in the same small dorps, previously unconsidered by photographers. Unquestionably these photographs were important social documents, but were they calling for justice? Or, like Diane Arbus, was Ballen simply captivated by the extraordinary characters of a disturbed world? Photographer's Residence: Johannesburg, South Africa

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Phaidon Press; First Edition edition (March 26, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714840580
• ISBN-13: 978-0714840581
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #808,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Travel > Africa > South Africa

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original and beautiful in an unusual way....., April 5, 2001

By 

Busy Bee (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Outland (Monographs) (Hardcover)

I just picked this book up today and was amazed at its sensitivity and beauty. Not everyone will enjoy it or understand this book but it has a feeling of Diane Arbus and the easiness of early Mary Ellen Mark with a kick of Ralph Eugene Meatyard. The compositions are beautiful and the inclusion of the animals are perfect.