Signed first edition. Unpaginated but approximately 130 pages. A good copy in a dust jacket. White boards with black titling to top board and spine. The dust jacket is in good condition except for a small tear at the top left of the front cover and a small crease mark at the top left of the back cover. The inside is unmarked except for Roger Ballen's signature. There are a couple of small marks at the top of the book.
For nearly two decades, Roger Ballen, an American, photographed South Africa’s countryside, capturing symbols of place and people. Platteland reflects the irony of apartheid's failure to uplift even its privileged minority. Many subjects, trapped by poverty and alienation from societal change, reveal a haunting world previously obscured by white supremacy. Ballen's stark, stripped-down portraits offer profound intimacy.
About Roger Ballen: One of the most influential and important photographic artists of the 21st century, Roger Ballen’s photographs span over forty years. His strange and extreme works confront the viewer and challenge them to come with him on a journey into their own minds as he explores the deeper recesses of his own.
Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950 but for nearly 40 years he has lived and worked in South Africa. His work as a geologist took him out into the countryside and led him to take up his camera and explore the hidden world of small South African towns. At first he explored the empty streets in the glare of the midday sun but, once he had made the step of knocking on people’s doors, he discovered a world inside these houses which was to have a profound effect on his work. These interiors with their distinctive collections of objects and the occupants within these closed worlds took his unique vision on a path from social critique to the creation of metaphors for the inner mind. After 1994 he no longer looked to the countryside for his subject matter finding it closer to home in Johannesburg.
Over the past thirty five years his distinctive style of photography has evolved using a simple square format in stark and beautiful black and white. In the earlier works in the exhibition his connection to the tradition of documentary photography is clear but through the 1990s he developed a style he describes as ‘documentary fiction’.
Roger Ballen has received numerous prestigious awards for his distinct, psychological, and often surreal photography. Top honors include being named Photographer of the Year at the Rencontres d'Arles (2002), receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bokeh SA Awards (2019), and receiving an Honorary Doctor of Art and Design from Kingston University (2018).
Source: https://www.rogerballen.com/portfolio-collections/my-portfolio/platteland
- Jacket Condition: Good
- Binding Condition: Very good
- Overall Condition: Good
- Size: 245 x 290 mm
