Foam opens exhibition of works by Roger Ballen and Asger Carlsen
(Artdaily.org)

In the collaborative project titled No Joke, artists Roger Ballen (1950, VS) and Asger Carlsen (1973, DK) explore the more sinister sides of the human psyche. Together the duo produced 37 images, without ever working in the same studio at the same time: their creative exchange and co-creation has been a purely online affair. Their menacing work evokes a sense of anxiety and longing that is usually experienced only in dreams. Although Roger Ballen lives in Johannesburg and Asger Carlsen in New York, the two artists have been working together online for some four years. In their bizarre universe, Carlsen’s use of the human body as a plastic medium and Ballen’s interest in collages and the occult merge together. They create an outlandish world full of distorted bodies, manic creatures, flesh and rough sketches in black, white and grey. Both frightening