约翰·冯·卑尔根
Джон фон Берген

source: johnvonbergen

My two studios, one in coastal Maine and one in the middle of the verdant farmlands of the New York’s Mohawk Valley suggest the importance of place in my finite existence. I’m in Maine because of an abiding love of boats and navigation. I’m in New York because of circumstances where my chosen “place” is a quarry surrounded by trees and farm fields, the old quarry reminiscent of a rocky coast, not granite, but significantly for my most recent sculptures, Early Devonian limestone.

These places present the subjects for my art where the process is drawing in the larger sense of the word: “To bring forth or out by design or chance, to pucker, wrinkle, lengthen, etc., as if by pulling, to produce by tracing a pen or pencil over a surface, to delineate; hence, to produce or represent as if by drawing, to formulate; as, to draw comparisons, to stretch, spread, or shape (metal) by passing through dies, by hammering, etc., to require (a specified depth, as of water) for floating; – said of a vessel, to pull or use force upon so as to cause to follow or to come down, up, out off, etc. as desired, to attract; entice; allure.” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dict.1956)

My subject matter derives from the marine environment, landscape, the figure, and the physical forces of nature. Repeated linear bronze elements cast in foundry sand are pieced together suggesting three dimensional drawings of volumetric objects intended to create a tension between abstraction and representation. I endeavor, in my sculpture to create anatomies, sometimes complexly dimensional, sometimes not, allowing light and space to circulate through them.

Castings of tree branches with their irregularities and repetitions (knots, buds, etc.), rocks, and objects from my studio environment are employed in the making of my “drawings”. The resulting sculptures are records of ideas, some recognizable in the case of the recent volumetric pieces, and others abstractions made from natural objects that seem to grow in a natural way in the process of drawing (“To bring forth by design or chance”).
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source: johnvonbergen

The independent artist is one who places… imagination apart from theory, and who is forthright in the expression of his or her idiosyncratic vision. Such an artist uses whatever technique lies readily at hand in the cultural environment, without ideological attachment to it. Such an artist chooses his or her materials, both physical and psychological, from among those that are handy and naturally congenial, without regard to fashion.

This is what von Bergen has done and is doing. He is the figure of the poet in the wilderness, eminently practical, a builder devoted not primarily to the products of his own hands as such but to their inter-influential relationship with the world.
– Hayden Carruth
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source: culturacolectiva

“… al interior de ese espacio se preocupa especialmente de la dimensión de los sólidos” -Schlemmer

Una de las tareas del escultor es unir en “un bello conjunto” cualidades como: la forma, espacio, línea, material, textura y, en algunos casos, movimiento para que la experiencia fisiológica del arte de la escultura sea dirigida a los sentidos del tacto, vista y oído. Actualmente la relación entre la escultura y el tacto es complicada, pues en ningún museo o galería es permitido el conocimiento de la belleza a través de este sentido por esta razón se le atribuye todo el valor de la experiencia a la sagrada vista, es decir, permite una contemplación del juego de volúmenes desde diferentes distancias, lo que Gottfried describió como “¡Pobre del amante, que en confortable quietud, contempla a su amada desde la distancia, como una imagen plana y se conforma sólo con eso!”

Pero ¿Qué pasa cuando la escultura es un fragmento montado en la pared? La pieza está completa cuando es despojada de todas sus partes visibles, se introduce al lenguaje escultórico por tener tridimensionalidad pero seduce la línea de la instalación una vez que el espectador comprende la obra y la implicación de sus componentes. La instalación necesita el espacio para completar su sentido y es por esta razón que el artista John Von Bergen requiere de grandes paredes para decir “la serie de materiales diferentes se puede incorporar a la simulación que representa lo violento, concebido para imaginar un altercado entre un objeto físico y la imitación del objeto. Mis proyectos no son necesariamente dependientes de cualquier referencia o tema en particular ya que hay muchas cosas diferentes en momentos interesantes.”

El artista Von Bergen utiliza la escala para mayor impacto sensorial, por lo que sus proyectos pueden ser desde 25cm hasta los 14mts. Los materiales más frecuentes en sus obras son: polímeros de yeso, poliuretano, acero, caucho, objetos encontrados y espuma.