museum gugging is dedicating a comprehensive exhibition to the internationally acclaimed photographic artist Roger Ballen, which takes a new look at his oeuvre. Entitled roger ballen.! drawing meets photography, the exhibition focuses on the tension between drawing and photography - two forms of expression that Ballen has radically combined for decades.
The artist, who was born in New York in 1950 and has lived in South Africa for many years, is one of the most influential photographers of our time. He became known for his dark, enigmatic black and white images, which sometimes seem like stage sets of the subconscious. People, animals, objects and enigmatic signs enter into an oppressive and fascinating choreography that leads deep into psychological abysses. But Ballen's work is far more than pure photography: it moves between painting, drawing, sculpture and installation.
Roger Ballen, Untitled, 2020 © Roger Ballen
The exhibition in Gugging, curated by Nina Ansperger, is the first to systematically show the role that drawing plays in the development of the unmistakable "Ballenesque" aesthetic. Lines, symbols and scribble-like forms appear in his pictures as independent actors that enter into a dialog with the photographed scenes. They expand the medium of photography, break through its supposed objectivity and create hybrid visual worlds that oscillate between reality and vision. Ballen himself describes his working method as a liberation of photography: "I have integrated drawing and photography into painting to create mixed-media images. My aim was to break down the boundaries between the arts and free photography from its self-isolation."
The museum gugging, which stands for the power of drawing like no other place, offers the ideal context for this presentation. After all, drawing is also the central means of expression of the Gugging artists, whose spontaneous, immediate visual language is in an exciting dialog with Ballen's works.
The exhibition is not only a journey into the visual worlds of an extraordinary photographic artist, but also a reflection on drawing as the primal language of art - raw, direct and full of existential force.
September 25, 2025 to February 15, 2026
www.museumgugging.at
Roger Ballen, Perplexed, 2019 © Roger Ballen
