Roger Ballen, Sheep on cupboard, 2003
Curated by Alessandro Dandini de Sylva
In collaboration with Marguerite Rossouw
Sound installation by Cobi van Tonder
Exhibition promoted by the Department of Culture of Roma Capitale and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo.
Produced by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo in collaboration with ISTMO
Roger Ballen (born in New York in 1950, Roger has been living in South Africa for over forty years) is one of the world’s greatest and most celebrated contemporary photographers. With Animalism, a research project he has been pursuing for over two decades, Roger explores the deep and often disturbing relationship between human beings and animals.
The images in the exhibition blur the boundaries between human and animal behaviour, questioning that distinction’s very nature. Specifically devised for the exhibition space of the Mattatoio di Roma, a former slaughterhouse where animals were once slaughtered for human consumption, the exhibition is conceived as a single installation, a typically “Ballenesque” theatre in which primeval instincts and the absurd hold sway. The Mattatoio itself, a symbol of historical violence and of man’s domination over animals, becomes part of the artwork, revisited as a space for thought and reflection.
Through surreal compositions and a dark absurdity, Animalism reveals how the animal is both an external presence and an intrinsic part of the human psyche, uncovering the deep connections between civilization and untamed nature.