John Berger

John Berger (1926-2017), English art critic, painter, and writer, an icon of the counterculture and one of the most influential thinkers of our time, went against the grain in an era of specialists and specializations. In paintings, essays, poems, fiction, screenplays, and television programs, he was also plural in his inspirations, taking an interest in the fringes of society (prisoners, peasants, migrants) as examples of resistance in the face of the ignominy of governments and markets. It was to escape this infamy, in fact, that Berger went into exile for more than 50 years in rural France. He won the Prize... Booker in 1972 with her experimental feminist novel G., and his most famous essay, Viewing Modes, written that year after the resounding success of the eponymous series by BBC, is a reference in art criticism still studied by academics and rediscovered by the public today. With a curious gaze at the world, with his feet on the ground and his hands turning it over, he knew how to expose, throughout his work and life, his political convictions, contradictions and metamorphoses like few others.