Yarpie Rednecks
March 16, 2007 10:14 AM   Subscribe

"You stand in front of the work feeling nervous, confounded, unaccountably emotional, perhaps even a bit giggly. These feelings persist when you go away. You can't stop thinking about what you have seen. This is how I have been feeling since seeing the work of Roger Ballen." (via)
posted by johnny7 (11 comments total)
 
Ugh, I need a shower.
posted by DU at 10:24 AM on March 16, 2007


I think that was the clams you had for lunch.
These photographs? I can't stop thinking meh.
posted by Methylviolet at 10:25 AM on March 16, 2007


Hmm... I'm feeling unaccountably unemotional.
posted by the jam at 10:50 AM on March 16, 2007


Looking through the New Project, some of them have interesting compositional choices, but more than anything I was struck by one thought;

'Were I ever to wander through a serial killers house, I bet he'd have artwork like this hanging on the walls'

Which was immediately followed by 'Hmm, I wonder if Roger Ballen is a serial killer?'
posted by quin at 10:52 AM on March 16, 2007


The reviewer obviously saw an exhibition in a gallery.NB the quotation marks.
Probably a bit more powerful that way.
posted by johnny7 at 11:04 AM on March 16, 2007


Why do artists almost universally have awful website navigation? Is that something they teach in art school now?
posted by mr_roboto at 11:18 AM on March 16, 2007 [1 favorite]


Why do artists almost universally have awful website navigation? Is that something they teach in art school now?

Inscrutable == Art

Architects are generally as bad, too.
posted by maxwelton at 11:45 AM on March 16, 2007


Website design's pretty bad, yah.

Some of his photographs are really good, IMO. Thanks for posting the link.

The somewhat breathless prose of the FPP seems a bit over the top, though. There's far scarier stuff all over Flickr.
posted by sidereal at 11:59 AM on March 16, 2007


Thanks for the post. I think they're intriguing. There is something very unique about his approach, especially in the flatter, more abstract photos of his new project

The more documentary-like photos of rural south africa remind me of Sebastião Salgado's photos of the poor, in that they emphasize where the body proportions of his subjects diverge from what is generally considered healthy and normal. There have been many interesting discussions about the implications of photographing poverty, like this one here by Kleinman and Kleinman. The article is long, but really interesting if you have the time...
posted by umbú at 12:57 PM on March 16, 2007


His more recent work is kind of witkinriffic, although I find his overall artistic development to be interesting... he follows a trajectory similar to Robert Frank^ -- an idiosyncratic vision merged first with documentary photography that sort of morphs into a more stylized/crafted vision as he evolves artistically.

Thanks for pointing this out. I enjoyed it, and I think my wife will as well.
posted by illovich at 7:17 PM on March 16, 2007


Why do artists almost universally have awful website navigation? Is that something they teach in art school now?

I have often wondered the same thing.

Finding an artist's site that is well designed is truly the exception, rather than the rule.
posted by Ynoxas at 10:00 PM on March 16, 2007


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