![]() It makes me more happy to have produced artwork. Why do you both make psychologically based art?Īsger Carlsen: It’s like you have this awkward feeling, you don’t feel comfortable around people and for me, these images are getting rid of that feeling a little bit. The more you think of these words, the more they just fall apart. Just like many other words like beauty or happiness or sadness. I mean what are you inside with? Does it mean that if you are an insider with people, that you are an insider with nature? And if you are an insider with the people at the country club, does it mean that you are an insider with yourself? So we are getting all screwed up with these words that are actually very general, but when you start to analyse them, they become meaningless. We are all born outsiders and we all die outsiders. So it’s a facade to believe that you are actually an insider. We are actually all kind of on the periphery of life in all sorts of ways, and not really understanding what our purpose is and what we are doing. People pretend that they are in, but they really have no idea what “in” actually means. I think the outsider is a metaphor for the human condition. But at the end of the day, we are actually all outsiders. Roger Ballen: I think the thing is that we all pretend that we belong. Someone wrote on Wikipedia that my images were about a feeling of not belonging anywhere, which I can relate to. I think that photography and making art has helped me get closer to a sane world, so to speak. And I guess I always had a feeling when I was growing up, that I wasn’t a part of the group in a way. And I guess for me to make art or to do this project, was kind of a way to cope with different things from the past. In what way do you feel like outsiders?Īsger Carlsen: This outsider feeling goes back to my earlier projects. The book deals with the archetype of the outsider and you’ve also described yourselves as outsiders. ![]() We caught up with the artists to discuss why the book is called No Joke, how fiction can pierce deeper into people’s minds than reality and why we are all outsiders. ![]() Though Ballen and Carlsen hold onto that they don’t work directly with social or political issues, traces of comments on issues such as beauty standards, gender and body dysmorphia are apparent throughout the images. The work has been a psychological journey for the artists themselves and their hope is to achieve a similar process within the viewer. ![]() This is a label both the artist’s work has been given countless times, but when asked about it, they argue that the disturbing effect is caused by traumas or anxiety within the viewer. The universe that Ballen and Carlsen have created is sinister, grotesque, macabre, monstrous, and, depending on the strength of your stomach, disturbing and repulsive. Lateral wood panels and pieces of furniture or beds often add to the sense of confinement. The creepy intimacy of the spaces they depict is hinted at by the elements that circumscribe them: there are no windows, and the walls are hung with fabrics, blinds, and pictures. In each step the artworks are changed, expanded, enriched with new layers and oversubscribed, eventually turning into enigmatic photo collages that combine advanced digital image editing with analogue techniques of cutting, collaging and drawing. Sharing a deep interest in the dark corners of the psyche and the human condition, the two began exchanging ideas and digital files through email and Skype. But after being paired by Vice for a project in 2013, Roger and Asger discovered the similarities in their approach to their work. ![]() With an age difference of 23 years between the two, Ballen living in Johannesburg and Carlsen in China Town, NYC, it’s a collaboration of distance. #WARPED REALITY DEF SERIES#This article originally appeared on Roger Ballen and Asger Carlsen discuss a sinister new collaborative project that distorts the human body and pierces the psycheīy collaging bodies and deformed body parts, animals and cadavers, wooden prostheses and melting constructs, artists Roger Ballen and Asger Carlsen have created a series of twisted and hard to define artworks, resulting in the book titled No Joke. ![]()
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