Book Notes: Landscapes: John Berger on Art

Landscapes: John Berger on Art

by John Berger

Finished 10/8/2019

I only knew John Berger by reputation. His book Ways of Seeing (and the accompanying BBC series) were the onramp of many of my friends and colleagues to Marxism and critical theory.

This book collects some of Berger's essays on art, though that catch-all is rather loosely interpreted, given the broad tonal and thematic content herein. There are memoir-like reminiscences of his youth, essays on marxism in a post-soviet world, travelogues in palestine and Israel, and thoughts on Walter Benjamin and Rosa Luxembourg. These subjects seem perhaps unrelated to what we generally think of as "art" but it comes through in Berger's insistence that we not lose sight of the aesthetic and emotional qualities of political struggle, and the ways in which we apprehend (and therefore understand) our political and social situation is conditioned by our relationship to art and aesthetics. Likewise, his fierce ethical compass shines through, especially his belief that art, as a social category, must be disentangled from property.

The essays I enjoyed the most included a deep dive into the revolutionary nature of cubism, and his thoughtful analysis of drawings as a medium and as a way of imperfectly capturing intangible experiences like memories. I also found myself nodding along reading his essay on the history of Museums, and thinking about whether they are redeemable, given their origins in propping up power. But I also liked several of political essays, including his thoughts on the fall of Berlin Wall, with its deeply humanistic though cautious championing of the collapse of Soviet-style communism. Likewise, his essay "Ten Dispatches about Place" in which he addresses the question of whether one can be a Marxist absent a living model of a socialist society. 

His writing is always clear and impassioned, complex and rich but not dense. This book was a great introduction to Berger, and I'm looking forward to reading more of this brilliant, ethical, and thoughtful scholar.                     

Quentin's Weeknotes 10/5/19-10/11/19

This Week:

• I finished reading Landscapes: John Berger on Art. As with all essay collections, it was varied, but I came away with a profound respect for Berger's deeply humanistic vision of Marxism and his sincere belief that art should be disentangled from property.
• Just in time for Halloween, I found this wild 1959 children's/novelty record called "Monster's Rally." The cover art, which was what attracted me at first, was drawn by the legendary EC Comics/Mad Magazine artist Jack Davis! I stuck around for such winning songs as "The Dracula Trot" and "Take Us to Your President"
• I read this great essay by Gabriel Winant on the origins of the term "Professional-Managerial Class" and its implications for the growing fight between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders' Supporters. Drawing on the politics of the New Left in the 1960s and 70s, Winant argues that the term (coined by the Ehrenreichs) is meant to encapsulate the complicated ideo-technical mess that greased the wheels between labor and capital in the Fordist 20th century. Now that that fordism (and the post-fordist neoliberalism that replaced it) has basically fallen apart as a political-economic formation, the "PMC" is fragmenting and fractions of it respectively gravitating towards various political solutions, some of which seem contradictory. Winant ultimately argues that political differences between Warrenism and Sandersism are meaningful, bI came away with a profound respect for Berger's deeply humanistic vision of Marxism and his sincere belief that art should be disentangled from propertyut perhaps less signficant given that both candidates are drawing support from an increasingly frustrated and fragmenting social strata. It's long, but worth your time.
• After being bewildered and amazed by an excerpt of it in the Vandermeer's massive anthology "The Weird", I started reading Reza Negarastini's "Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anomalous Materials". It's dense and strange, so wish me luck as I fall down an oil well.

Quentin's Weeknotes 9/27/19-10/4/19

This Week:

• I finished Tim Powers supernatural spy novel Declare. It was fun and strange and, according to Powers, almost completely historically accurate, aside from the Cold War fight over fallen angels.
• Thanks to my students in Hartwick College's Collectors and Collecting course, I learned about Mother Featerlegs, a fascinating character from the American Wild West, and arguably the only sex worker in the United States memorialized with a monument.
• Also in Collectors and Collecting--I taught a lecture on the history of comics and comic collecting, in part inspired by this weekend's New York City Comicon. I drew on what I learned from Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: the Untold Story, David Hajdu's The Ten Cent Plague, and Gabilliet's Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. 
• Dinosaurs! I read this crazy story about North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows and how a piece of property that he owned got embroiled in a controversy about dinosaurs, creationism, and ethics violations. Plus, great photos of allosaurus skulls!

Quentin's Weeknotes: 9/7/19-9/13/19

This Week:

• I visited the Oneonta Grand and Glorious Garage Sale. Not as much loot as last year, but I did grab a few Stan Rogers records that I'm missing.
  
• I taught a lecture on collecting practices in ancient Mesopotamia, based on Allison Karmel Thomason's fascinating book.
• I listened, rivetted, to Chris Hayes' conversation with ACLU attorney and LGBTQ- activist Chase Strangio. The interview was mind-blowing for me, with deep discussions of 'Gender Trouble' and the ways in which activism, the law, rights, gender, and sexuality fit uncomfortably together. Really great stuff from a really great podcast.
  
• I was a huge fan of Corey Robin's book "The Reactionary Mind" which attempts to locate the core metaphors of conservative thought in a historical context. Last year, he announced that his next book would be a study of Clarence Thomas, perhaps one of the most interesting and mysterious figures in American political life. Now it's out (or almost out) and this excerpt in the New Yorker makes clear that the book will not disappoint. In brief, Thomas' early commitment to Black Nationalism (he organized free Breakfasts modeled on the Black Panthers, and supported Angela Davis and Bobby Seale) has morphed into a deeply pessimistic view of American society and the possibilities of eradicating racial harms through policy. 
  

Quentin's Weeknotes 8/17/19-8/23/19

This Week:

• I went back to work at the Yager Museum after three weeks away. So much to do, including
  
  • getting ready for Hartwick College's Matriculation (which happened this Wednesday),
  • setting up a new exhibit entitled "Art / Politics: Power, Persuasion, and Propaganda" which I curated
  • preparing to teach MUST250: Collectors and Collecting in a week.
  • getting the fall Museum events schedule up and running, including our welcome back reception, The Horror in the Museum, and much more.
• I finished reading Dave Neiwart's "Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump". It was good, and quite thorough in its charting of the intertwining trajectories of the patriot and neo-confederate movements. But it held little beyond description, and Neiwart's prescriptions in the afterward struck me as short-sighted.
• I read this wonderful historical article about W.E.B. Du Bois debating a White Supremacist author in 1912. It's a riveting read, as Du Bois made a literal laughing-stock of this guy, but also for what it says about contemporary "debates" with White supremacists and other sundry ethno-nationalists. As someone (who I can't find right now) on twitter noted, commenting on this article, Du Bois shut these arguments down 100 years ago so we shouldn't have to listen to them today!