John Berger in the Chauvet Cave

Riccardo Venturi, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

While the BBC television series Ways of Seeing (1972) undoubtedly constitutes John Berger’s most famous collaboration with the television medium, it is not, however, an isolated case. In fact, around 2002, on the occasion of an exceptional visit to the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in Ardèche, in the company of archaeologist Jean Clottes, Berger is caught on camera by Pierre-Oscar Lévy (Dans le silence de la Grotte Chauvet, 2002), who has devoted a little-known trilogy to the question of prehistory, despite the fact that it precedes Werner Herzog’s celebrated 3D documentary (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, 2010) by several years.

The French director films Berger both inside the cave, guided by the voice and directions of Clottes who helps him see the cave paintings, but also outside. As soon as he emerges from the deep darkness of the cave, Berger – visibly affected and stupefied – has difficulty recounting the experience he has just had. Here is the writer who has taught several generations of readers how to look at a work of art, left speechless for once.

My contribution aims to revisit this episode, inscribing it within the writings consecrated by Berger to prehistory, not forgetting the performance The Vertical Line (1999), held in an abandoned London tube station. I will also attempt to reconstruct the dialogue between Berger and Jean Clottes, particularly regarding the controversial shamanic view of prehistory defended in those years by Clottes together with archaeologist James David Lewis-Williams (author of The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, 2002).

Riccardo Venturi teaches Theory and History of Contemporary Art at the Department of Arts plastiques at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. He deals with the relationship between visual arts and environmental humanities.