Outland
Roger Ballen

Outland is the culmination of almost twenty years of work for artist-photographer Roger Ballen and amounts to one of the most extraordinary photographic documents of the late twentieth century. Beginning with the small 'dorps' or villages of rural South Africa, the subject of Ballen's photography moved on in the late 1980s and early 1990s to concentrate on their inhabitants: isolated rural whites, scarred by history, in the process of losing the privileges of apartheid which had provided them with livelihoods and sustained their identity for a generation. The results were shocking, both powerful social statements and disturbing psychological studies. Through the late 1990s and into 2000, Ballen's work has progressed again. Continuing to portray whites on the fringe of South African society, his subjects begin to act. Where previously his pictures, however troubling, fell firmly into the category of documentary photography, his new work moves into the realms of fiction. Ballen's characters act out dark and discomfiting tableaux, providing images which are exciting and disturbing in equal measure. One is forced to wonder whether they are exploited victims, directly colluding in their own ridicule, or newly empowered and active participants within the drama of their own representation.

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Amazon Rating:
US$36.46
(As of Sep 08 21:48 , info)

1 review from Art blogs:

20x200 Blog 16 Jun 10:
... Ballen was one of the first photographers I studied in high school. At that time, he had about twenty years of work under his belt and had published his third book, Platteland, a collection of photo-journalistic/documentary photographs of rural South Africa. * A few years later, in 2001, he published Outland, which departed from factual representations—in as much as a photograph can depict 'fact, ' which is another discussion all together—into a realm that is described more by the unknown than the known. Place of the upside down, from 2004, is one of these images. His work was—and still is—like nothing I had seen. ...

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1 review from Photography blogs:

Conscientious 08 Mar 10:
... I had been looking for Roger Ballen's Outland for a while, being under the impression that the first edition was actually sold out (I think someone had actually told me it was sold out). This past weekend, I found a copy, a 2009 reissue, in New York. However, having done a little research online, it looks like the original 2001 edition never sold out? And I also couldn't find anything about a 2009 reissue. So regardless, if you're looking for Outland you can simply order it. ...

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