From November 2019 to March 2020, CENTRALE for contemporary art offers two new and unique exhibitions: Roger Ballen – The Theatre of the Ballenesque and Correspondances, an original dialogue between Ronny Delrue and Roger Ballen.

The Theatre of the Ballenesque, the first Brussels major show of artist Roger Ballen, includes photographs, videos and installations in situ, and also blends in some of the artist’s graphic interventions. Roger Ballen is indisputably one of the most important photographers of his generation. Born in New York in 1950, he has lived and worked in South Africa for more than 30 years. His work has been collected and exhibited in Tate Britain (UK), Rijksmuseum (NL), MoMA (New York, US) and in the Museum Dr. Guislain (Ghent, BE), etc.

The Theatre of the Ballenesque invites visitors to a completely immersive journey in the universe of the artist. Spectators will be able to fully experience the richness and density of a complex work that explores the meanders of the human spirit. Having graduated in psychology and then geology, Roger Ballen decided to explore the depth of the human mind through the means of photography. Under the impulsive hand and the methodological eye of the artist, components emerge, becoming the elements of a theatre of the absurd: the Ballenesque.

This exploration of the unconscious is also at the origin of the exhibition Correspondances in which the Belgian artist Ronny Delrue will present his photographs, in dialogue with those of Roger Ballen, enhanced by his drawings and photomontages of the two artists.

The two projects at CENTRALE are combined with unprecedented collaborations with major Belgian institutions: Ancienne Belgique and S.M.A.K. (Ghent).

As part of the forty years of the concert hall of Ancienne Belgique will be held the concert of the internationally renowned South African group Die Antwoord, with whom Roger Ballen collaborates regularly, among others for the video I fink U freeky, which enjoyed millions of views on Internet. Roger Ballen will provide an artistic intervention to the group’s performance of November 25, 2019 at AB.

Finally, the exhibition Correspondances by Ronny Delrue, presented in parallel at S.M.A.K., will also include collaborations with Roger Ballen.

Atonement, 2019 © Roger Ballen, in collaboration with Ronny Delrue and Marguerite Rossouw

PRATICAL INFORMATION

Roger Ballen – The Theatre of the Ballenesque
Curators : Carine Fol & Stéphane Roy

Ronny Delrue – Roger Ballen – Correspondances
Curators : Carine Fol & Philippe Van Cauteren
In collaboration with S.M.A.K.

Vernissage : 13.11.2019
Exhibition : 14.11.2019 > 14.03.2020

CENTRALE for contemporary art
Place Sainte-Catherine 44, 1000 Brussels
WED > SUN 10:30 > 18:00

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Correspondances, in parallel at S.M.A.K.

Vernissage : 25.10.2019
Exhibition : 25.10.2019 > 19.01.2020

S.M.A.K.
Jan Hoetplein 1, 9000 Ghent
TUE > FRI 9:30 > 17:30
SAT > SUN 10:00 > 18:00
https://smak.be/

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Concert Die Antwoord
25.11.2019, 20:00

Ancienne Belgique
Boulevard Anspach 110, 1000 Brussels
https://www.abconcerts.be/

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Box Galerie also presents a selection of Roger Ballen’s photographs in the exhibition Outland (14.11 > 21.12.2019).
Box Galerie
Chaussée de Vleurgat 102, 1050 Brussels
http://www.boxgalerie.be/

© Roger BALLEN & Ronny DELRUE

Exhibition

Sophie Whettnall (1973) works with video, photo, installations and performance. She won the Prix de la Jeune Peinture in 1999 and enjoys international recognition.
Since the nineties, the work of Sophie Whettnall offers a reflection on the forces that define our relationship to the world around us, by materialising and documenting them. Sophie Whettnall focuses on light and analyses its presence and zones of absence and passage. The aesthetic pieces of the artist prove simultaneously sensitive and powerful, resting on a dialectic tension and attempt to instigate a relation between contradicting concepts and perceptions: between softness and sensuousness, yin and yang, women and men…
Her work also contributes to a form of autobiographical project.

As is customary for exhibitions by Brussels artists held at CENTRALE, Sophie Whettnall was asked to choose an international artist to exhibit alongside her. She selected the canvasses, drawings, watercolours and engravings of Etel Adnan. At the crossroads of East and West, the work of Etel Adnan, born in Beirut in 1925, is imbued with the richness of warm lands, the burning sun and rugged mountains and is adorned with a literary aspect re-transcribed in paint, since the painter is also a writer and has also worked with directors for the theatre.

The exhibition’s subtitle, La banquise, la forêt et les étoiles (The ice field, the forest and the stars), reflects the universe of the Belgian artist as well as that of Adnan. A formal dialogue is established between both artists, a shared, intimate and personal vision of the landscape, the light and its transparency.

Sophie Whettnall – Etel Adnan. La banquise, la forêt et les étoiles
04.04 > 04.08.2019
Vernissage : 03.04.2019

Publication

On the occasion of the exhibition, the Editions Mercator will publish a monograph on the work of Sophie Whettnall.

Release date : March 2019, price : € 45

© Sophie WHETTNALL