Roger Ballen's solo exhibition Roger Ballen. The Works: Drawing meets Photography is now on at Museum Hanmi Samcheong (main building). Ballen was born in New York in 1950 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to the museum's press release, the show brings together some 130 works, including photographs, drawings and etchings, and lays out more than 60 years of work in seven sections.

The title alone puts drawing and photography side by side. The artist's own words in the press release say the same thing: his work is "something that is at once photography and drawing." But a line can get into a photograph in more than one way. Was the drawing made in front of the lens before the shot, was the drawing itself photographed, or was it drawn on top of a finished photograph? The answer changes the nature of the work. This piece takes the three apart, working from the descriptions and images the museum has released. The editors have not yet been to see the exhibition in person.

Lines drawn in front of the lens first

Black-and-white photograph of a shirtless boy holding a cardboard box covered in doodled faces above his head, mouth wide open. A toy dinosaur stands inside a square hole torn out of the box.
Roar, Shadow Chamber series, 2002, Inkjet print, 45×45cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

Roar (2002) is one of the pictures in the Shadow Chamber series. A shirtless boy holds a cardboard box up over his head, his mouth wide open. The box is covered in faces that look as if a child drew them, and a toy dinosaur stands inside a square hole torn out of the middle. A few small doodles show on the wall behind him too.

Here the drawing is just another prop. It was on the box before the shutter was pressed, and it went into the picture in the same light as the boy and the toy dinosaur. The museum explains that from 2000 on, Ballen took on more and more of the staging himself in this series. By the museum's account, he arranged not only the people and objects but also the lines and empty space in the background.

Black-and-white photograph of a large round face drawn in smudged dark lines on a stained wall. Below it, two human arms lie crossed on a wooden table.
Mimicry, Shadow Chamber series, 2005, Inkjet print, 45×45cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

In Mimicry (2005), from the same series, drawing and body come even closer. Directly below a round face drawn on the wall, a person's two arms lie crossed on a table. The face is a drawing on the wall. The arms are a real person's arms. The photograph makes no distinction and takes in both in one frame.

Anyone who takes pictures knows this way of working. You decide what goes in the frame, then press the shutter. What differs is what goes in. According to the museum, around the time of the Outland series Ballen was photographing lines and shapes he found in the real world, and he gradually began placing drawings and objects himself.

A coat with a raised collar and no head stands in front of a wall layered with doodles. A pale bird perches on a hand coming out from the front of the coat. Thin leafless trees stand on either side.
Headless, Asylum of the Birds series, 2006, Inkjet print, 63×63cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

The approach continues into the series with birds and rats. The museum puts Asylum of the Birds and Roger's Rats in a single section and says the animals in them appear as companions to people rather than as props. In Headless (2006), a headless figure in a coat holds a bird on one hand. The drawn faces and stick-like lines on the wall behind tangle with the bare branches on either side, and at a glance it is hard to tell where the drawn lines stop.

Photographs of drawings

A bright face-like surface floats in a dark frame, with three eye shapes ringed in smudged black. A thick black band cuts vertically through the right side, and faint lines like a window frame run across and down.
Stare, Theatre of Apparitions series, 2008, Lightbox panel, 130×130cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

The Theatre of Apparitions series, hung on the museum's first basement level, works differently. According to the museum, the artist scratched or wiped away a darkened glass surface to make lines and figures, then photographed it with a camera. Light comes through where the surface was scratched away, and everything else stays dark. The press release sets this series apart from "photographs with drawings" and calls it "photographs of drawings."

Stare (2008) is also part of this series. In the released image, three smudged black eye shapes sit on a bright surface that reads as a face. A thick black band splits the right side of the frame from top to bottom, and faint lines like a window frame cross it both ways. The official caption gives the medium as Lightbox panel and the size as 130×130cm. The press release does not mention showing the original glass plates. What visitors will see is the line on the glass, carried over into light.

On a black ground, a white figure holds an umbrella overhead and leans on a cane, looking up. Above it, the two eyes of a blurred face-like form are visible, and a white crackle-like pattern spreads along the edges.
Thunderous, Theatre of Apparitions series, 2011, Lightbox panel, 65×44.8cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

The scratch marks are clearer in Thunderous (2011). The figure holding up an umbrella keeps a rough grain all the way through its body, while the blurred face above it smears as if out of focus. Crisp lines and smudged forms glow together in the same frame.

So which hand finished the work? The one that scratched the glass, or the one that pressed the shutter? Put Stare in the same category as the Polaroid works and the question gets muddy. Both can look like lines drawn on a photograph, but the line was made on a different surface, and at a different moment.

Lines drawn on the finished photograph

The third is "Ballen's World Along the Line: Polaroids & Etchings," a separate room in the museum's collection gallery. According to the press release, the Polaroid works here have line and color painted directly onto the photographic surface. The photograph is finished first, and the line comes afterward, on top. A Polaroid is usually its own original, the one print that came out of the camera, so a line drawn on it exists on that print alone. The materials do not say, though, whether the works on view are such originals.

The press release gives no titles, years, paints or sizes for the Polaroid works in this room. The museum's list of press images has no Polaroid plates either. That is why this article shows no images of the Polaroid works.

Recent work, now in color

A figure in a blue dress wearing a large face mask holds a broom in one hand and tips a bucket with the other. A white rabbit bolts out at their feet. Masks hang on the left wall, and faces drawn in white lines cover the right wall.
Thrown Out, Spirits and Spaces series, 2021, Inkjet print, 75×75cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

The museum presents Ballen's color work since 2020, centered on the Spirits and Spaces series. The press release says color has become one more element in building the picture in the recent work. In Thrown Out (2021), the color is what you notice first. Against gray wooden walls, the figure's blue dress is the only thing that jumps out. The masked figure grips a broom and tips a bucket, and a white rabbit bolts out at its feet. The right wall is crowded with faces drawn in white line.

On a dark wooden wall, white light spreads from the eyes of two women's faces in frames near the top. Below, seven panels hold chalk-like figures and the day names monday through sunday. On the floor, worn dolls lie scattered among metal chairs and wooden crates.
Omnipresent, Spirits and Spaces series, 2022, Inkjet print, 75×75cm.ⓒRoger Ballen · Museum Hanmi press image

Omnipresent (2022) comes from the same series. High on the wall hang two framed faces of women, white light seeping from their eyes. Below, a dark board is divided into seven panels, each with a single figure that looks drawn in chalk and a day of the week written on it, monday through sunday. Worn dolls lie scattered on the floor among metal chairs and wooden crates. The released image file is so low in saturation that it looks almost black and white.

Both are built much like Roar. The drawing is placed in front of the lens first and goes into one scene along with the objects. What changed over those twenty years should be easier to see with the works side by side.

Start with the caption

For anyone who shoots film, the exhibition raises one simple question. Where does a photograph stop being a photograph? Setting a drawing in front of the lens, photographing the drawing itself, working over a finished photograph: each one mixes photography and drawing. What changes every time is which comes first, the shutter or the line.

In the galleries, we suggest reading the medium on the caption next to each work before anything else. Inkjet print, Lightbox panel, and paint on a Polaroid. However alike two works look, that one line tells you where the line was drawn. One more note: Inkjet print refers to how the work was printed for display. The exhibition materials do not say what cameras or film Ballen used.

Visitor information

The details below follow the museum's press release. We have not been able to double-check them on the museum's website, so please confirm with the official listing before you go.