Next Thursday 25th May, a solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed American photographer Roger Ballen (New York, USA, 1950) opens at the camara oscura art gallery within the framework of the PhotoEspaña Festival.
“Introspective” is the first retrospective exhibition by Roger Ballen in Madrid. In this project we have selected three of his most iconic series -”Outland, “Shadow Chamber” and his most recent “Boarding House”- in order to create a hallucinatory and enigmatic itinerary of one of the most personal and singular visions in contemporary photography. Throughout his career Ballen has developed what we could call a voyage of discovery in which we must abandon our everyday self to face the most primitive side of the human condition and of our own psyche.
Our voyage starts up with “Outland”, the culmination of more than twenty years of photographic work. Images from the territory of fiction where the main characters are active participants in the drama they themselves represent.
This voyage continues with “Shadow Chamber” that treads the nooks of scenes where poetry, symbolism, and the decay of objects are just at the core of the narrative. Ballen seeks disturbing and claustrophobic scenarios in order to slowly unveil the story behind them. Humour, intrigue, chaos, grime, and beauty battle each other, fascinating or disgusting us in a theatre with no audience where fate and a painstaking composition of distant and invisible worlds coexist.
Last but not least, our voyage comes to an end with “Boarding House” where both human beings and animals appear isolated, alien and lost, but at the same time gifted with a higher strength. Survival, alienation, and a certain spark of hope.
In order to receive the press kit (press release and images) please contact us on (+34) 91 429 17 34 or e-mail info@camaraoscura.net
