Nemo’s photo team took a little field trip yesterday to the opening of the Roger Ballen show, at Quality Pictures. A PhD in Geology led him to South Africa, where he began taking photographs of rural disenfranchised Afrikaners. His work is beautiful, disturbing, darkly humorous, and sad. I think good art makes you feel…happy, sad, uncomfortable, etc. In Ballen’s work discomfort is a primary emotion. You can’t escape the looming question of exploitation and ethics, which in a way, makes his art even more engaging. Does his work spur awareness and action, or is it art for art’s sake- we look, feel and look away?
