World 2aa

Computer Inkjet prints by Paul Berger
“A common response to Berger’s work is that it is interesting but opaque. When discussing this, he points out his favorite cartoon on his wall: a cave man is drawing a horse and his companion says, ‘I don’t get it.’  After tens of thousands of years, we ‘get’ representation to the degree that it is hard to see it as a convention of thought.  Berger is convinced that there are other interesting reasons for and ways of stopping the flow of information, and making and talking about pictures.  New phenomenon similar to representation have begun to develop rapidly: they demand our attention and understanding. Some are necessarily opaque at first.  Walker Evans (a prominent 20th century American photographer) once said that he photographed to see what the present would look like in the past.  Paul Berger makes pictures in order to see the present as obsolete.”- from: Paul Berger, The Machine in the Window, by Rod Slemmons, published by the Seattle Art Museum and The University of Washington Press, Copyright circa 1991