Roger Ballen
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Photographer / Director / Artist
The crazy doodles on the outfits of SA’s zef rap-rave duo, Die Antwoord, are actually not the aftermath of little kids dancing to their music, koki pen in hand. They are drawings inspired by this guy.
Born in New York in 1950, Roger Ballen came to South Africa in the early 1980s. Intrigued by the political and social landscape of this country, he ventured into capturing his surroundings with a photojournalistic angle. He took pictures of the people who were living on the fringes of a society governed by Apartheid. These striking works broke a lot of taboos and were met with hesitance by the public. Herein lies the link between his work and that of Die Antwoord, with whom he created the music video for ‘I Fink You Freeky’.
He has had over 50 exhibitions worldwide, and his work is represented in many museums across the world including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2013 the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution presented a major retrospective of his work, to critical acclaim.
This is one cool oomie.
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