John Berger (born 1926) is one of the most intriguing and richly controversial figures in British arts and letters. Actually, since he lives full-time in France, he can scarcely be considered English in any meaningful way, and is indeed an international figure, widely regarded outside this country as one of Europe’s greatest intellectuals and quite often as some sort of cultural guru. Here he is thought of as a Marxist art critic, a dangerously potent broadcaster and a writer or novelist who defies categorisation. One suspects he is a bit of an embarrassment to the arts establishment, so he tends to be ignored. His residence abroad makes this easier, but Berger has a way of getting under the skin of the imagination, and, like the gritty irritant that results in an oyster, stimulating us — almost against our will — into thinking with independence and originality.
As a writer Berger has never been less than interesting, and the novels of his mature vision (beginning with Pig Earth in 1979) are intensely poetic and compelling. His essays are always worth reading, partly because of the fresh way in which they make us look at art and ourselves, but principally because of the delight in discovery that Berger is so good at provoking and sharing. In 2009, he gave a vast archive of material to the British Library consisting of 60 years’ worth of notes and papers. Aware of the potential monetary value of this cache, but typically reacting against such a commodification, Berger simply donated to the BL what other writers might have sold to a wealthy American institution. The material, which had been stored in his stables in the French Alps, was immured in a deep freeze for a couple of months to kill off the bugs, and then gradually sorted and identified. This exhibition — the first to be mounted by the newly inaugurated King’s Cultural Institute — presents (in close collaboration with the BL) the first sample of Berger’s archive to be offered to the public gaze.
The show is divided among four rooms, part of King’s College in the East Wing of Somerset House. The first room is the most interesting, not because it is dedicated to a particularly exciting theme (it’s arranged around Berger’s first novel, A Painter of our Time, one of his most painfully worthy efforts), but because it is visually realised in a more complete way than the rest of the exhibition. In other words, there are more and better things to look at. Apart from the obligatory archive material — newspaper cuttings and notebooks — there are really good paintings on show. Chief among these is a magisterial early oil by Leon Kossoff, entitled ‘St Paul’s Building Site’ (1954), and hanging on either side, a couple of things by Berger himself (he’s still a practising artist) — a painting of scaffolding put up for the Festival of Britain, and an ink drawing of a London suburb.
There are also two portraits by Peter de Francia, a Berger friend and sparring partner, a tough industrial scene by Prunella Clough and a lithograph by Leger from de Francia’s own collection. In the better of the two portraits, the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm fixes the visitor with a boss-eyed gaze. An atmosphere of high seriousness, political commitment and intellectual endeavour is conjured forth. The other rooms, in which Berger appears for a minute at the beginning of his groundbreaking TV series Ways of Seeing, or is filmed drawing from life, or talks in the dark about the ancient paintings of the Chauvet cave, simply don’t pack the same punch. There are some good letters and photos, but art makes the crucial difference.
Archive exhibitions are rarely thrilling, but something of Berger’s magnetism and sincerity comes across here. Perhaps one should be careful not to lionise the man too much. As he wrote in Rodin and Sexual Domination (1967): ‘The anniversary cult is a means of painlessly and superficially informing a “cultural élite” which for consumer-market reasons needs constantly to be enlarged. It is a way of consuming — as distinct from understanding — history.’ This quotation is emblazoned in red at the beginning of the exhibition. Berger deserves to be understood rather than simply consumed. Please be aware that this free exhibition is open from Monday to Saturday, 1 p.m. until 7 p.m. It’s not easy to find, but is certainly worth the effort.
Nearly the last chance to see a pair of shows currently at Pallant House in Chichester. The first to finish is a tribute to Adrian Berg (1929–2011), one of our finest landscape painters, and a dedicated celebrant of the beauty of this country’s parks. For many years he lived in a flat overlooking Regent’s Park, and painted it throughout the seasons, inventively varying his approach conceptually and in terms of format.
Much influenced by the great colourists of the past, and particularly such modern masters as Monet and Bonnard, Berg made his own colours riot and soar like fireworks. A master of pattern who loved the abstract art of the carpet, Berg knitted up the ravelled sleeve of nature into compositions of sonorous structure and resounding colour contrasts. His large canvases are often involved with landscape reflected in water, the thin translucent paint dribbled evocatively in vertical streamers. The smaller works represent the raw material gleaned from constant observation of nature’s fruitfulness and decay: luminous studies of trees and flowerbeds, the sea and cliffs of the south coast.
Berg was using explosive colour to capture the English landscape long before it occurred to David Hockney to do so, but then, interestingly, Berg had been a formative influence on Hockney in their student days at the Royal College. Another artist of a similar vintage, who also trained at the RCA, is Peter Blake, this year celebrating his 80th birthday with various exhibitions and festivities, including a party at the Albert Hall. The exhibition at Pallant House investigates his relationship with Pop music, most famously in his design for the album cover of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Blake has continued his involvement with Pop through designs for Paul Weller, The Who, Oasis, Pentangle, Eric Clapton, Live Aid and Band Aid. He has also painted the Spice Girls, Madonna, Robbie Williams and Ian Dury, not to mention his lifelong obsession with Elvis. The Blake show continues until 7 October, but Berg ends on 30 September.
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