The Man Behind the Mask

Surreal black and white scenes – their visual aesthetics positioned somewhere between silent films and puppet theatre – made all the more disconcerting by the omnipresence of a rat mask with a static, permanent grin: this sets the tone for the exhibition Roger the Rat, on view at the Leica Gallery Vienna from 31 October 2024 to 22 February 2025. The man behind the camera (and the mask) is Roger Ballen, famed for his disquieting, symbol-laden pictorial worlds. 

Provocation has always played a key role in Ballen’s work, which has increasingly shifted from a documentary to a fictional approach – culminating in the artist’s characteristic, ‘Ballenesque’ aesthetic. Conveyed through his masterful use of monochromatic photography, his orchestrations lead viewers outside of their comfort zone, to dark, at times nightmarish places, on a collision course with their own demons and fears. To this end, Ballen conceived the persona of Roger the Rat: with this anthropomorphic creature, the American-born artist explores the grotesque depths of the human psyche, deliberately blurring the lines between himself and his animal protagonist.

Roger is, after all, embodied by none other than Ballen himself. The boundary between fact and fiction begins to dissolve, as does the distinction between seriousness and satire. “When I create photographs, I often journey deep into my innermost self, where dreams and many of my images originate. I see my photographs as mirrors, reflections and connectors that challenge the mind,” Ballen once remarked about his work.