Paperback, 160 pages
ISBN: 9781844672547
July 2008
£7.99
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of John Berger's influential Ways of Seeing, the groundbreaking book and television series which have become staples of art critcism, the British Film Institute is staging a series of screenings and events based upon the author's small-screen films.
Berger's stunning series explored the history of representation in Western art, interrogating well-worn tropes of classical art education with a razor-sharp Marxist critique. The book and series cemented Berger's role as one of Britain's most lucid and engaging cultural critics, a role he continues to fill today with his challenging, sharply-written books on aesthetics, culture and contemporary politics, including Hold Everything Dear and Bento's Sketchbook.
As well as screening the original Ways of Seeing in it's entirety, the BFI season also features his early television work for BBC's Monitor and Granada TV, and runs throughout April. A selection of Berger's books will also be on sale at the event.
Visit BFI Online for more information on the series.
Sparing no room for nuance, the magazine covers are all reminding us that the United States—and hence the planet—is set to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, a day that not only changed the world and signaled the end of innocence and spawned a new greatest generation, but also launched a thousand new slogans with which to label that day, and inspired thousands of speeches intent on inspiring thousands more.
However, despite the horror, anger, uncertainty—and yes, for some, glee—from the damage inflicted on that momentous day, there remained, in the aftermath and up to now, a limited vocabulary within the mainstream with which to describe the events of that time and the trail of destruction that followed.
And since we aren’t anticipating a commemorative circuitous flight over the country on Air Force One with the President of the United States, we would like to offer an alternate journey—that is, a survey of Verso’s responses to 9/11:
