Roger Ballen, Die Antwoord : I fink U Freeky

Description

This book is dedicated to those
who live on the edge, who stare into the abyss,
who find light in darkness.

Sujets

• Musique
• South Africa
• Die Antwoord

Informations

• Publié par: MinimalVibes
• Nombre de lectures: 37
• Licence : En savoir +
  Paternité, pas d'utilisation commerciale, partage des conditions initiales à l'identique
• Langue: Français

Extrait

ROGER BALLEN DIE ANTWOORD

ROGER 

BALLEN

DIE ANTWOORD I Fink U Freeky

With contributions by Ivor Powell, Ninja & Yolandi Visser

PRESTEL MUNICH ∙ LONDON ∙ NEW YORK

007   109   115  

           

CONTENTS

Roger Ballen & Die Antwoord Ninja and Yolandi  Die Antwoord & Roger Ballen A Conversation  A Dark & Deadly Collaboration Ivor Powell

Ninja and Yolandi

ROGER BALLEN & DIE ANTWOORD

When we saw Roger Ballen’s photographs for the first time it was like being punched in the face. At first we were like “What the fuck?” “Who are these people?” “Where do they live?” and “Jesus! Who the hell took these pictures?” When we found out that these pictures were taken by a photographer called Roger Ballen in South Africa, we couldn’t believe it! We had never seen photographs that made us feel such violent excitement, and the fact that these images were ‘Made in South Africa’ was just the best thing in the world! In our experience South Africans are generally embarrassed about being South African, and look up to the US, EU, UK styles as being better. This was the first time in our lives we saw South African art that slammed so fuckin’ hard and dark. Also, the two of us have never really been able to fit into any part of South African culture. So we related heavily to the strange, alienated people in Roger Ballen’s photographs, living on the fringe of South African society. The way that Roger Ballen presented these people inside this dark, spooky, comic book-like world was just the illest shit we had ever seen in our lives. So fascinating, so disturbing, so unfuckingbelievably fresh! These were no ordinary photographs. They were like highly complex surreal artworks in the exact same league as Salvador Dalí, Hieronymus Bosch and Lucian Freud.

Suddenly all the music and imagery we had been working on up until this point seemed fuckin’ wack in comparison to Roger Ballen’s freak-mode zone. We also wanted to make heavyweight ‘Punch You In The Face’-style art like this. So we threw all the music we had been working on for so long away, and started from scratch. The retarded graffiti scrawled all over the walls and random objects in Roger Ballen’s photographs looked like it was made by either children, mental people or criminals. This raw, demented graffiti had a huge influence on us psychologically. This graffiti ripped open the filters that protected our conscious thoughts from our animal-like subconscious zones. We both underwent dark and dangerous psychological transformations as we dove deep into the most primal regions of our minds and merged with our shadow selves. Instead of trying to work out how to fit into society, we decided to make our own unique breed of ‘Fuck You’-style pop music. We called this new dark pop group Die Antwoord.

Yolandi made contact with Roger Ballen in 2006 shortly aſter discovering his work. Two years later we created our first photograph with Roger Ballen called$O$, which was also the name of Die Antwoord’s first album. Six years aſter meeting Roger Ballen we made our first music video together calledI Fink U Freeky, and our relationship came full circle. The series of photographic images contained in this book flowed directly out of this dark and deadly collaboration. On an artistic level Ninja and Yolandi are kinda like Roger Ballen’s little punk protégés, and it would be accurate to say that Roger Ballen accidentally spawned Die Antwoord.

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This book is dedicated to those who live on the edge, who stare into the abyss, who find light in darkness.

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Die Antwoord, 2008

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