A cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis.
JOHN BERGERA cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis.
JOHN BERGERThere’s the artist’s intimacy and truthfulness to himself, but an equal intimacy to the Other [the one drawn].
JOHN BERGERHair is associated with sexual power. With passion.
JOHN BERGERThe power of the glamorous resides in their supposed happiness: the power of the bureaucrat in his supposed authority.
JOHN BERGERWe who draw do so not only to make something observed visible to others, but also to accompany something invisible to its incalculable destination
JOHN BERGERThis determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.
JOHN BERGERAdvertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal
JOHN BERGERA peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork.
JOHN BERGERMatisse did neither. He clashed his colours together like cymbals and the effect was like a lullaby.
JOHN BERGERThe poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.
JOHN BERGERThe century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.
JOHN BERGERTo remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.
JOHN BERGERAt times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism.
JOHN BERGERPublicity is the life of this culture – in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive – and at the same time publicity is its dream.
JOHN BERGERWe can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the accident of birth, there is no accident of death. Nothing forces us to remain what we were.
JOHN BERGERYou can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events.
JOHN BERGER