Roger Ballen. Animalism – MIA Photo Fair BNP Paribas 2026

15° edition
Stand B006 – Superstudio Più, via Tortona 27, 20144 Milan

From March 19th to 22nd, 2026, as part of the fifteenth edition of MIA Photo Fair BNP Paribas, BUILDING presents Animalism, a selection of twenty-four artworks by photographer Roger Ballen born in New York in 1950 and based in South Africa for over forty years. The artist is exclusively represented in Italy by the gallery.

Through his distinctive vision, capable of creating images charged with psychological tension, Ballen explores the profound—and often disturbing—relationship between humans and animals, transporting the viewer into the carnivalesque, performative, and subconscious imagery that characterizes his work.

The exhibition brings together works created over more than three decades of research, forming a sort of anthology that collects some of the artist’s major projects, including: eight black-and-white works from the Outland (1995-2000), Shadow Chamber (2000-2004) and Boarding House (2000 – 2008) series; six color photographs from the Spirits and Spaces (2016-2024) series; two lightboxes from the Theatre of Apparitions series (2008-2013) and eight Polaroids (2024-2025).

In conjunction with Metamorfosi [Metamorphosis], the theme of this year’s MIA Photo Fair BNP Paribas, Roger Ballen’s work deeply resonates with enigmatic and mysterious scenes that are both beautiful and disturbing. Through surreal compositions and dark absurdity, the artist reveals how animals are simultaneously an external presence and an intrinsic part of the human psyche, unveiling the deep connections between civilization and nature.

The black-and-white photographs presented at the fair were taken between 1996 and 2016 and recently presented in the exhibition titled Roger Ballen. Animalism, curated by Alessandro Dandini de Sylva, at Pavilion 9a of the Mattatoio in Rome (27.05.2025-27.07.2025) – the former city’s slaughterhouse, a highly evocative space and symbol of the historical violence of human domination over animals. In these highly theatrical images, the boundary between human and animal behavior dissolves: typically ‘Ballenesque’ scenographies, are dominated by the absurd and primordial instincts, question the very nature of this distinction.

The exhibition also features two lightboxes: they are inspired by the black-painted windows of a cell, on which a female prisoner had drawn figures in an abandoned women’s prison in Johannesburg (South Africa), Ballen experimented with the use of spray paint on glass, then intervening “by subtraction,” drawing over the paint or removing it with sharp objects to allow natural light to filter through. The result is reminiscent of prehistoric cave paintings: black surfaces devoid of depth become canvases on which the artist engraves thoughts and emotions. Fossilized faces, dismembered body parts, and evanescent shadows, similar to ghostly presences, coexist in images capable of shocking, fascinating, entertaining, and exhilarating the viewer. Timeless and radically innovative, the lightboxes transcend traditional concepts of photography, placing themselves between the physical and spiritual, earthly and otherworldly dimensions. These pictures were selected to represent South Africa at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, as part of the exhibition “Into the Light”.

The same primitive and obscure figures return in the latest book, Inferno, published in 2025 by Postcart Editore, in which Ballen illustrates the first canto of Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Inferno, offering—for the first time in publishing history—a complete edition of Dante’s poem with an entirely photographic visual apparatus.

Another section of the exhibition is dedicated to six color photographs taken over the last six years, the result of an expressive turning point that came after more than fifty years of black-and-white media, presented in 2025 at BUILDING TERZO PIANO. The images are included in the artist’s most recent monograph, Spirits and Spaces, published by Thames & Hudson in 2025 Autumn, and developed in collaboration with Marguerite Rossouw, artistic director of Ballen’s studio.

His photographs, set in claustrophobic spaces inhabited by dark creatures and figures, are unique, enigmatic, and fascinating. As Colin Rhodes writes in The Theatre of Colors (Spirits and Spaces): “The worlds created in these photographs are related to the theatre, a relationship fully acknowledged by Ballen himself. Their staging – always close-up – supports compelling and profound micro-dramas that speak to fundamental aspects of the human condition. They are not related to grand theatres, in which audience and drama are empathetically separated, but to small, intimate spaces of repertory (…), where audiences are pressed up close, and often actively engaged with the performance and unfolding narrative.”

The exhibition includes eight Polaroids, color photographs —hand-colored by the artist—which, due to the nature of the medium are small in size and unique pieces. Color, small format, and fragmentation are unusual characteristics for Ballen’s imagery, traditionally associated with an alienating, provocative, and slightly disturbing universe. Ballen moves decisively towards color. The result is not a break, but an intensification: a chromatic expansion of his journey dedicated to the subconscious. By embracing color, he has not abandoned the ‘Ballenesque’ world, but has taken it further, creating a theater in which spirits, animals, and memories collide in spaces that are as disturbing as they are memorable.

“Welcome to the mental world of Roger Ballen”