BERGER JOHN

Η ΕΙΚΟΝΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΟ ΒΛΕΜΜΑ
«Η οπτική αντίληψη προηγείται των λέξεων. Το παιδί βλέπει και αναγνωρίζει πριν μπορέσει να μιλήσει. Όμως η οπτική αντίληψη προηγείται των λέξεων και υπό μία άλλη έννοια. Η οπτική αντίληψη είναι εκείνη που καθορίζει τη θέση μας στον κόσμο που μας περιβάλλει· ερμηνεύουμε αυτόν τον κόσμο με λέξεις, αλλά οι λέξεις δεν μπορούν ποτέ να αναιρέσουν το γεγονός ότι περιβαλλόμαστε από αυτόν. Η σχέση μεταξύ του τι βλέπουμε και του τι γνωρίζουμε δεν είναι ποτέ σαφώς προσδιορισμένη.» Το βιβλίο του John Berger, ασκώντας κριτική στην παραδοσιακή δυτική αι...
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Η κόκκινη τέντα της Μπολόνιας
Καθισμένος στα σκαλοπάτια της Πιάτσα Ματζόρε στην Μπολόνια, μία από αυτές τις απίθανες πόλεις όπου μπορείς να περιπλανηθείς μετά θάνατον, ο αφηγητής ανακαλεί την εικόνα του αγαπημένου του θείου, ενός μανιώδη αλληλογράφου, αναγνώστη και ταξιδιώτη, που σημάδεψε την παιδική και εφηβική του ηλικία. Οι στοές, οι πλατείες, οι εκκλησίες, τα μαγαζιά και οι κόκκινες τέντες αποτελούν το σκηνικό μιας συνομιλίας που, χάρη στη μαγική αρχιτεκτονική της πόλης, μπορεί να συμβεί μυστικά, αν και δημόσια. (Από την παρουσίαση στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου)...
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ΓΙΑΤΙ ΝΑ ΚΟΙΤΑΜΕ ΤΑ ΖΩΑ;
Στο κείμενο περιγράφεται η σχέση των ανθρώπων με τα ζώα, η οποία είναι χτισμένη πάνω στον κυρίαρχο τρόπο θέασης. Επίσης εξετάζεται η ιστορική διαδρομή που ακολούθησαν τα ζώα από υποκείμενα λατρείας σε φυλακισμένα αντικείμενα. Όπως προκύπτει από την παρούσα ανάλυση, οι ζωολογικοί κήποι σηματοδοτούν τη φυσική και μεταφορική εξαφάνιση των ζώων. Μέσα από την αποδόμηση των θεσμών και των αντιλήψεων που κρατούν τα ζώα έγκλειστα, μπορούμε ν' αναστοχαστούμε τις ατομικές τους οντότητες και να δημιουργήσουμε μια νέα απεικόνιση. (Από την παρουσίαση σ...
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(P/B) UNDERSTANDING A PHOTOGRAPH
John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith - and the lives of those photographed - with fierce engagement, intensity and tenderness. The selection is made and introduced by Geoff Dyer, author of the award-winning The Ongoing Moment. How do we see the world around us? Thi...
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(P/B) WAYS OF SEEING
How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever. "Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak." "But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know ...
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(P/B) WHY LOOK AT ANIMALS? (GREAT IDEAS)
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ΕΝΑΣ ΖΩΓΡΑΦΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΙΡΟΥ ΜΑΣ
Ο διάσημος συγγραφέας και ιστορικός της τέχνης John Berger, έδωσε με αυτό το μυθιστόρημα, που δημοσιεύθηκε στην αρχή της σταδιοδρομίας του (Λονδίνο, 1958), το συγκλονιστικό πορτραίτο ενός στρατευμένου καλλιτέχνη που παλεύει ασταμάτητα με τον εαυτό του και τις αμφιβολίες του. Ένας Ούγγρος κομμουνιστής πρόσφυγας, ο ζωγράφος Γιάνος Λάβιν, φτάνει κυνηγημένος στο Λονδίνο το 1938, παντρεύεται μιαν Αγγλίδα, την Νταϊάνα, διδάσκει σχέδιο σε ένα μικρό κολλέγιο και αφιερώνεται με πάθος στη ζωγραφική. Η καθημερινότητα ενός πρόσφυγα καλλιτέχνη και οι ...
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(H/B) WHAT TIME IS IT?
The last book that John Berger wrote was this precious little volume about time titled What Time Is It?, now posthumously published for the first time in English by Notting Hill Editions. Berger died before it was completed, but the text has been assembled and illustrated by his longtime collaborator and friend Sel?uk Demirel, and has an introduction by Maria Nadotti. What Time Is It? is a profound and playful meditation on the illusory nature of time. Berger, the great art critic and Man Booker Prize-winning author, reflects on what time ...
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(P/B) AND OUR FACES, MY HEART, BRIEF AS PHOTOS
"Those who read or listen to our stories see everything as though through a lens. This lens is the secret of narration, and it is ground anew in every story, ground between the temporal and the timeless ... In our brief mortal lives, we are grinders of these lenses". When John Berger wrote this apparently unclassifiable book, it was to become a sensation, translated into nine languages and indelible from the minds of those who read it. This stunning work is a shoebox filled with delicate love letters containing poetry and thoughts on mort...
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(P/B) THE RED TENDA OF BOLOGNA
"It's an improbable city, Bologna - like one you might walk through after you have died." A dreamlike meditation on memory, food, paintings, a fond uncle and the improbable beauty of Bologna, from the visionary thinker and art critic....
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(P/B) STEPS TOWARDS A SMALL THEORY OF THE VISIBLE
'We live within a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks' In this series of remarkable pieces from across his career, John Berger celebrates and dissects the close links between art and society and the individual. Few writers give a more vivid and moving sense of how we make art and how art makes us. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddh...
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(P/B) Landscapes
Landscapes, the companion volume to John Berger's highly acclaimed Portraits, explores what art tells us about ourselves. "Berger's work is an invitation to reimagine; to see in different ways," writes Tom Overton in the introduction to this volume. As a master storyteller and thinker John Berger challenges readers to rethink their every assumption about the role of creativity in our lives. In this brilliant collection of diverse pieces - essays, short stories, poems, translations - which spans a lifetime's engagement with art, John Berger...
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(P/B) PORTRAITS
A lifetime's encounter with artists: from prehistoric cave painting to the present John Berger, one of the world's most celebrated art writers, takes us through centuries of drawing and painting, revealing his lifelong fascination with a diverse cast of artists. In Portraits, Berger grounds the artists in their historical milieu in revolutionary ways, whether enlarging on the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves or Cy Twombly's linguistic and pictorial play. In penetrating and singular prose, Berger presents entirely new ways of thin...
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ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΑΙΝΤΑ ΣΤΟΝ ΧΑΒΙΕΡ
Δεν είναι η αγάπη παιχνίδι του καιρού... Σε μια σκονισμένη, μισοερειπωμένη πόλη ζει η Άιντα. Ο αγαπημένος της, ο Χαβιέρ, βρίσκεται στη φυλακή, ως επικίνδυνος τρομοκράτης. Αποφασισμένα, λάγνα και τρυφερά, τα γράμματα της Άιντα προς τον άντρα που αγαπάει μιλούν για τα καθημερινά γεγονότα στην πόλη και για το ετερόκλητο πλήθος των κατοίκων της, που οι ζωές τους κυλούν μέσα από τη δική της. Όμως ο τόπος βρίσκεται κάτω από διαρκή απειλή και, καθώς μια τυραννική εξουσία εισβάλλει αναπόδραστα από έξω, οι πιο ασήμαντες λεπτομέρειες, οι πιο απλές δ...
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(H/B) CATARACT
"Cataract from Greek kataraktes, meaning waterfall or portcullis, an obstruction that descends from above." Notes and reflections by one of our great soothsayers of seeing, John Berger, on the minor miracle of cataract surgery. With drawings by the Turkish artist Selcuk Demirel. "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." - William Blake (From the publisher)...
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(H/B) DAUMIER
Lavishly illustrated with works from throughout Daumier's career, including the satirical lithographs that made his name, this is a superb catalogue to accompany a visit to the current exhibition at the Royal Academy. Admired within his lifetime, Daumier was later feted by Van Gogh and Picasso and his art continues to be appreciated by such contemporary artists as Paula Rego and Peter Doig. Including critiques by artist Peter Doig and author John Berger, amongst others, this fine publication is 192 pages in length and contains 160 illustra...
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(H/B) SMOKE
Following the success of Cataract, John Berger, one of the great soothsayers of seeing, joins forces again with Turkish illustrator Selcuk Demirel. This charming pictorial essay reflects on the cultural implications of smoking. A subtle and beautifully illustrated prose poem, Smoke lingers in the mind. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) BENTO'S SKETCHBOOK
A meditation, in words and images, on the practice of drawing, by the author of Ways of Seeing. The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza - also known as Benedict or Bento de Spinoza - spent the most intense years of his short life writing. He also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notes - but no drawings. For years, without knowing what its pages might hold, John Berger has imagined finding Bento's sketchbook, wanting to see the drawings alongside his surviving words....
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(P/B) HOLD EVERYTHING DEAR
From the War on Terror to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East, Berger explores the uses of art as an instrument of political resistance. Visceral and passionate, Hold Everything Dear is a profound meditation on the far extremes of human behaviour, and the underlying despair. Looking at Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq, he makes an impassioned attack on the poverty and loss of freedom at the heart of such unnecessary suffering. These essays offer reflections on the political at the core of artistic expression...
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(P/B) THE SHAPE OF A POCKET
John Berger writes: "The pocket in question is a small pocket of resistance. A pocket is formed when two or more people come together in agreement. The resistance is against the inhumanity of the new world economic order. The people coming together are the reader, me and those the essays are about - Rembrandt, Palaeolithic cave painters, a Romanian peasant, ancient Egyptians, an expert in the loneliness of certain hotel bedrooms, dogs at dusk, a man in a radio station. And unexpectedly, our exchanges strengthen each of us in our conviction...
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