<nettime-ann> NEW YORK: Ways Of Seeing John Berger

["Naeem Mohaiemen" <naeem.mohaiemen@gmail.com>]

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If in NY, this is worth checking out. -N
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WAYS OF SEEING JOHN BERGER
A DAY-LONG SERIES OF SCREENINGS DEVOTED TO JOHN BERGER'S TV AND FILM WORK
Great Theatre, 19 University Place
Friday 10 October 2008


Few artists alive today have changed the way in which people imagine,
view and think about the world around them more than John Berger.
Born in 1926, this indefatigable poet, art critic, essayist, poet,
Booker Prize-winning novelist and theatrical director has produced an
enormous and ceaselessly exploratory body of work - about landscape,
labour, memory, photography, painting, time, the Palestinian struggle
- that appeals directly to both the intellect and to the heart.

It is impossible to do justice to the range and impact of his creative
achievements.  WAYS OF SEEING (1972), his examination of the covert
ideologies that underpin Western cultural aesthetics so revolutionized
the study of art history that one critic has likened it to "Mao's
Little Red Book for a generation of art students".  A SEVENTH MAN
(1975), an extraordinarily prophetic and resonant prose poem-cum-photo
essay on the topic of European guest workers, correctly identified
migration as one of the most pressing subjects in contemporary
society.

A FORTUNATE MAN (1967) and AND OUR FACES, MY HEART, BRIEF AS PHOTOS
(1982) are just two of his books whose artful prefigure the hybrid
forms of creative non-fiction associated in recent years with the
likes of Ryszard Kapuscinski, WG Sebald and Eduardo Galeano.

Always, in these works as well as in his many collaborations with
artists such as Anne Michaels, Michael Ondaatje, Mike Dibb and Gavin
Bryars, he has sought to illuminate what novelist Geoff Dyer calls
"the enduring mystery of great art and the lived experience of the
oppressed."  This mystery, whose evocation has also been central to
the creative and intellectual projects of his many admirers, among
them Arundhati Roy and the late Edward Said, led Susan Sontag to
describe him as "peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer
who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness
to the imperatives of conscience.'

WAYS OF SEEING JOHN BERGER offers a very rare opportunity – free of
charge, and open to the public as well as to members of NYU - to see a
cross-selection of Berger's television and film work, much of it
unknown to American audiences.

__________

PROVISIONAL SCREENING SCHEDULE:

9am – A TELLING EYE (1994), dir. Mike Dibb, 60 min
10am – ONCE UPON A TIME (1983), dir. Mike Dibb, 52 min
11am – PIG EARTH (1979), dir. Mike Dibb, 50 min
12pm – PARTING SHOTS FROM ANIMALS (1980), dir. Mike Dibb, 60 min
1pm – ANOTHER WAY OF TELLING (1989), dir. John Christie, 120 min
2.45pm – JONAH WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR 2000 (1976), dir. Alain
Tanner, 120 min
4.45pm – A TRIBUTE TO GHASSAN KANAFANI (2008), dir. Perry Ogden, 15 min

___________
BRIEF FILM SYNOPSIS:

* A TELLING EYE – documentary tracing the development of Berger's work
for television

* ONCE UPON A TIME – spellbinding meditation on the relationship
between art, time and storytelling

* PIG EARTH - highly acclaimed film about French peasantry made with
Swiss photographer Jean Mohr

* PARTING SHOTS FROM ANIMALS – innovative documentary essay about the
relationship between human beings and the animal world

* ANOTHER WAY OF TELLING – complete four-part series exploring the
nature and potential of the photographic image

* JONAH WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR 2000 – Alain Tanner directs this
witty, moving examination, scripted by Berger, of eight characters
struggling to keep alive the dream of 1968

* A TRIBUTE TO GHASSAN KANAFANI – deeply affecting reading of a short
story written by the distinguished Palestinian author assassinated by
Mossad in 1972

__________

Presented by the Colloquium for Unpopular Culture – with special
thanks to John Berger, Alexandra Chang, John Christie, Mike Dibb,
Gareth Evans
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