'It is obvious to anyone worth talking to that it is a bad book etc.' Berger's Ways of Seeing was dismissed with these stern words in the anonymously penned issue of Art-Language in October 1978. The cover mimicked Berger's reproduction of René Magritte's The Key of Dreams (1935). Art-Language borrowed the image but altered the text beneath. (For instance, the jug at bottom left is captioned 'the Walter Benjamin,' another bugbear of the Art & Language collective).
The whole issue, consisting of one extensive text, was devoted to a critique of Ways of Seeing. Despite its 'almost incredible number and variety of defects,' Art-Language conceded that the book was 'a paradigm of sorts.' As such, it was ripe for 'de-mystification,' its cultural influences conducive to a broad-ranging analysis of 'the conditions of their occurrence.' As Ways of Seeing recedes from us historically, so too does Art-Language's critique. As Peter Osborne has remarked, early issues of the journal appear to us as relics from a lost civilisation. How might we consider Ways of Seeing from our current vantage point alongside its critique and the attendant promises of 'theory'?
Dr Stephen Moonie is a Lecturer in Art History at Newcastle University.
University of Nottingham Lakeside Arts Centre Nottingham, NG7 2RD