‘John Berger and the Paradox of Art: Joshua Sperling and Fabrice Samyn’

John Berger (1926-2017) was one of the most beloved yet controversial art critics of the twentieth century. Best known for the polemical BBC series Ways of Seeing, Berger’s work called into question fundamental assumptions about art, aesthetics, and the social role of the artist. Where does the impulse to make something begin? How does the human value of art emerge?

Please join us for a conversation between the American writer Joshua Sperling and the Belgian artist Fabrice Samyn on Berger’s work and legacy, the riddles of artistic responsibility, and the afterlife of the twentieth century in the present.
The event is in celebration of Joshua Sperling’s new biographical study, A Writer of Our Time: The Life and Work of John Berger, published by Verso.

Joshua Sperling (b. 1982) is an American writer and scholar. His work includes film criticism, narrative stories, and essays on postwar aesthetics, politics and culture. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale University and currently teaches at Oberlin College. A Writer of Our Time is his first book.
Fabrice Samyn (b. 1981) lives and works in Brussels. His work in painting, photography, sculpture and performance is characterized by great formal and thematic diversity. Recurring interests include time and light, the problematics of representation in contemporary society, and the spiritual traditions of the east and west. His work has been exhibited internationally in a number of venues.