When the hunted turn on you, it's game over

From the outside, the Inside Out Centre for the Arts in Forest Town, Johannesburg, may look like any other office building. It has a modern façade, concealed entrance and functional parking space manned by a security guard. Inside, however, it’s unlike anything you’ll see elsewhere in the city.

The newly opened centre is the brainchild of dark, surreal, absurdist photographer artist Roger Ballen and in its inaugural show, End of the Game, Ballen has taken on a popular subject in a playful, yet darkly psychological manner.

US-born Ballen has lived in Johannesburg for more than four decades. His reputation as an eerie explorer of the dark recesses of the mind has brought him local and international acclaim. He purchased the land for the building in 2018, intending it to be a home for his office and the operations HQ for the Roger Ballen Foundation, dedicated to the advancement and appreciation of photography in South Africa. In the years since, and in the wake of the Covid pandemic, Ballen has had time to reimagine the space and what it should be dedicated to.

End of the Game, inspired by the title and some of the themes of a 1965 book by legendary wildlife photographer Peter Beard, is divided in two across two floors of the centre. On the top floor, displays of historical artefacts and figures from the history of hunting on the continent bring home the extent of the ravages this practice has had on wildlife over the decades and its consequences for the ecological crisis we face today. Hunting rifles, ammunition and stereoscopic big-game celebratory photos sit in glass cabinets under the gaze of movie posters from the golden age of Hollywood, reinforcing stereotypical ideas of Africa as a primitive, dark continent filled with uncivilised peoples and dangerous wild animals.

Inside “the hunter’s room”, lion and zebra skin rugs lie spread out under the macho eyes of famous big-hunter enthusiasts such as Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt. The overview that the top floor’s historical museum presentation paints is a sorry indictment on the increasingly distasteful and outdated practice. Downstairs is a different story altogether.

Here Ballen takes centre stage, offering a macabre collection of installations and photographs that present the animals with the chance to exact some metaphorical revenge on their tormentors. A trio of visibly distressed human figures climb the walls in an effort to escape hungry hyenas; a stuffed lion stands holding two human heads in boxes like shopping items; a mannequin wearing a leopard’s head and stockings holds court as the leader of a gang of cheetahs looking menacing and ready to pounce; and a lioness stands pinning a helpless hunter and his gun beneath her.

Everywhere are photos from various series in Ballen’s career that highlight his long-running interest in animals as vehicles for the investigation of the uncomfortable recesses of the psyche. It adds up to a chaotic, undeniably Ballenesque experiment in which animals take over the space and take back the narrative of being hapless victims of circumstance and prey to the whims of men with guns. It’s serious without being earnest; playful without being fickle; and unlike any other museum show. As the centre’s title promises, here things are topsy-turvy, inside out and the wrong way round, and in the case of the subject of this first show’s concern, that’s wish fulfilment of the best kind.

• 'End of the Game' is now showing at the Inside Out Centre for the Arts and can be visited by making a reservation at insideoutcentreforthearts.com. Tickets are R150 per person and include a one-hour guided tour and a full-colour copy of the catalogue.