Gallery Bergen-West Hall

Bergen Community College

400 Paramus Road

Paramus, NJ  07652

Open: Monday-Friday-10:00am-5:00pm/Closed on Saturdays and Sundays/After hours by Appointment

Free to the public

https://bergen.edu/community/gallery-bergen/

https://www.facebook.com/GalleryBergenAtBergenCommunityCollege/

TripAdvisor Review:

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I never realized until just recently that we have an art gallery on the Bergen Community College campus. I have been teaching here since 2013 and just found out about this little ‘gem’ that is tucked in the second floor of West Hall.

This wonderful little gallery can be accessed on the Main Campus of Bergen Community College and is open to the public for viewing. The Art students of Bergen Community College show their works in student shows and the Retailing students show their work outside the Gallery.

Gallery Curator Professor Tim Blunk

The Gallery is a reasonably sized space and viewing the Gallery Bergen takes a reasonable amount of time that is not over-whelming. It is a nice way to spend the afternoon when visiting the campus.

Please visit the Bergen Community College for future shows.

Gallery Bergen recently showed, “Belongings: Photographs at the Borders of Citizenship” exhibition which is showing the works of Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and Clem Albers (1942) and Tamara Merino (2018). This exhibition pairs two sets of photographic records, two tragic experiences of people on two sides of the US border, separated by seventy-five years in America’s cultural and political struggle over who belongs and who doesn’t (Bergen Gallery Press Release).

A former exhibition was “Lines of Fire/Lines of Ice” . This exhibition is art being presented to get us to think of our effects on nature. The Gallery Bergen is presenting art that might help us change our views of ourselves in the world (Curator).

Curator’s Statement:

“It is 2019. Fires advance; glaciers retreat. Oceans rise; deserts spread. The Homo sapiens population grows exponentially; entire species of fish, mollusks, insects, amphibians and birds perish each day. Lines are being redrawn on the surface of the earth-lines that can be seen from space. Yes these same lines are often blurred or erased when viewed through the lens of ideology”-Tim Blunk, Curator.

See Performance Artist Jaanika Peerna perform the ‘Glacier Elegy’ similar to the one she did at opening night.

The Gallery is curated by Professor Tim Blunk, Director Gallery Bergen.

In April 2019, the Student Art Show is going on in the Gallery. This was where students were showing off their end of the semester projects.

Student Show at Gallery Bergen

A former show by Hackensack-based artist Lauren Bettini, whose exhibition “On the Mend” was an exploration of the female body, displaying themes of “Women’s work” through accounts of women who bear scars, both physically and emotionally. This unique installation utilizes the entirely of the gallery, literally tying together embroidery of surgical procedures are “mended” through the appearance of the physical act of sewing. The exhibition is a platform to celebrate the beauty of their altered bodies while women stand strong together to share their stories.

Artist Lauren Bettini

It is an interesting take on what we endure in life and how we sometimes hide it from society.

“On the Mend” Exhibition Summer 2019

The mounted three-dimensional castings of woman’s hands are used to symbolize a movement of women joining together, sharing their stories and helping each other heal. This platform to honor women who have survived medical surgeries, celebrates the beauty of their altered bodies and pays homage to centuries of women who have created are in the form of sewing and embroidering (Gallery Bergen Promotional packet).

The recent ‘NJSeoul: New Art from the Korean Diaspora’ that  opened for the Fall of 2019. The show was a combination of paintings, pictures and visual art from five different Korean artists. The show also features video art and interesting short films.

New show from September 12th-October 31st 2019

Some information of the Exhibition on Studio Bergen

The exhibition that opened for the Fall semester 2019 is the ‘(Pro) Found Objects’, the Bergen Community College Faculty Exhibition. The exhibition features works from 19 different Professor/Artists whose work includes statuary, photos, paintings, video art and clothing construction.

This painting is by Professor Juan Leon

This painting is by artist Juan Leon

This painting is by Professor Ada Goldfeld

The opening night on November 14th 2019 featured a performance by the Music Department and a performance by the head of the Drama Department from the upcoming show “I do, I do”. Then everyone had time to look over the art before a light reception at the end of the evening.

Opening in the Spring of 2020, Gallery Bergen is featuring “Ornithology: Patterns of Flight” that features birds in flight, sound and behavior. I saw the exhibition as man’s perception of birds at play and at rest and our concept of aviation in terms to humans. How do we communicate with the natural world, if we can and how do we relate as humans to the natural world.

‘Moche-Bird Runner’ by Susan Haviland

The art was everything from visual to video and showed the artist’s interpretation of the bird world. This was my favorite piece in the show.

‘Ashes to Gold’ by Caroline Bergonzi

Each artist had a unique take on their art.

‘Deep Song’ by Susan Haviland

During the musical performance part of the opening, one of the artist’s in the exhibition teamed up with another musician and performed their concept of birds in flight. To that our Dance Department created a performance that encompassed the whole gallery.

Our Adjunct Dance Professor’s performed that night

Professor Justin Watrel at Gallery Bergen Opening

Here I am admiring the art that night. It was a wonderful exhibition. The Gallery Openings are an interesting night of art and music. The receptions are not bad either. Our Culinary Department does a nice job with appetizers and desserts.

This time lapse on YouTube is from the opening night of ‘Patterns of Flight’ at Bergen Community College

With the Gallery Bergen closed with campus being closed, Curator Tim Blunk created this  YouTube video “20Big20: Quarantine and Protest” on the pandemic and racial strife:

Another exhibition that the College has is BCCAnimation:

In the era of COVID, Gallery Bergen has created new exhibitions via YouTube. This is for the new “Black Lives Matter @BCC: Photographs from the Live Protest”:

These are photos from all over the country during the Summer of 2020 protests.

Gallery Bergen recently hosted the Student Exhibition 2021 virtually:

The creative approach to Gallery Bergen in the era of COVID keeps us active.

When Gallery Bergen reopened in 2021, the first big exhibition was “The Ramapough Nation: Excavating Identity”, the art of the nation.

The exhibition featured works by local Native American artists.

The exhibition contained visual arts by local indigenous artists, panel discussions (see Facebook page) and gallery talks.

The new exhibition that recently opened in the Fall 2021 is “Zoom Out: Works from Bergen Community College Artists”, a faculty show of works from the professors from the art department.

“Zoom Out” exhibition

Works from the Opening Night:

The opening night of “Zoom Out” with works in the visual arts

The “Zoom Out” exhibition was a selection of faculty works in the visual arts, painting, graphics and sculpture. One professor created an interesting piece of video art reworking the movie “Psycho” by Alfred Hitchcock.

The video creation on the movie “Psycho”

New Works from “Zoom Out”

Work by curator and Professor Tim Blunk

In the Spring of 2022, Gallery Bergen has exhibited “Art in History: the photographers of the Great Depression”, with photos from the Depression era of the 1930’s. It was a heart-breaking display of a very dark time in our country’s history. I could see that many people don’t realize that this was only 80 years ago. It gave a view into the lives ordinary people whose lives were affected by the falling economy. Lives were upended by things like the Stock Market Crash and the Dust Bowl.

“Art in History: the photographers of the Great Depression” exhibition

The photographers were part of the WPA where people from the arts part of the government program were to keep artisans working during the Great Depression. The works are a heartbreaking reminder of how fast life can change.

I was lucky that I got to sit in on Professor Tim Blunk’s class that afternoon for the lecture on the exhibition. It is scary how much these students didn’t learn in high school about this time. What amazed me was that how much this is still going on not just all over the world but in our own state as well. I have travelled to parts of the New Jersey that remind me of these pictures.

The BCC Student Art Show 2022 was the first time in two years the students got to showcase their work in the Gallery

Asian Awareness Month in 2022 brought interesting speakers and engaging movies to Gallery Bergen.

The lectures and independent films were very interesting and brought wonderful conversations to Gallery Bergen during the celebrated month of April.

In June of 2022, I attended the opening of the “Reflection/Refraction/Manhattan: Photographs by Jin Hong Kim” exhibition at Gallery Bergen, celebrating this local Korean-American photographer/artist. Each of the works was from a section of Manhattan from the Hudson Yards to Midtown to Lower Manhattan giving a almost surrealist look at the City in the Post-COVID era. It was as if the artist asked us to look at Manhattan again from a different lense or perspective.

The new exhibition by local photographer Jinhong Kim

Each of the pictures looked as one patron said, “like something that Salvador Dali might do.” It gave buildings in Manhattan movement and asked us to look at them a second time.

The Exhibition “Pulse: Resonating Earth” by artist Poramit Thantapalit is very engaging and fascinating to walk through.

From the Gallery Bergen Website:

During the fall of 2022, Gallery Bergen will be transformed into an aquatic installation by Thai artist Poramit Thantapalit. His medium is trash – as in found plastic bottles, plastic bags, and other refuse that might have as easily found its way into the Hackensack River, a landfill, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Instead, Poramit breathes life into these materials, shaping luminous organic sculptures that undulate and pulse from the ceiling and wall. They make the viewer forget their origins in their newly aggregated forms.

There is a genre referred to as eco-art, or “trash art,” but this is something very different. “Jackson Pollock painted with house paint, but he wasn’t a house painter,” says Gallery Bergen director and curator Tim Blunk. “Poramit’s deft artistic hand and his understanding of transforming quantity into quality creates work that transcends its materials.” PULSE: Resonating Earth will be embellished with several performance events, including the scheduled opening gala on September 22 and its closing on December 8. Both will include dance performance pieces by BCC faculty member Lynn Needle and her Art of Motion Dance Theatre and Steinway pianist Carolyn Enger. The opening will include excerpts from Needle’s work, The Poseidon Project – An Aquatic Myth – a suite with live music and dance, including narrated choreographed sections, each connecting to aquatic myth, legend, and nature.

Pictures from the Exhibition:

Story from the exhibition on Land Acknowledgement.

The exhibition:

All the art displays of Poramit Thantapalit’s work in Gallery Bergen

Picture One:

Beautiful works

Picture Two:

Picture Three:

Picture Five:

Picture Six:

The colorful interactive art of Gallery Bergen in 2022 of artist Poramit Thantapalit

The Faith Ringgold: Coming to Jones Road-Her Exhibition on moving to Englewood, NJ

These were the works by the artist when she moved from Harlem to New Jersey.

The artist bio with the exhibition.

The Exhibition in Gallery Bergen

The Exhibition in Gallery Bergen

Her work based on the George Washington Bridge

Another interesting work

The Gallery Opening of “Faith Ringgold-Coming to Jones Street” at Gallery Bergen

Some of the works in the exhibition

“We come to America” by Faith Ringgold

More works in Gallery Bergen

The Theme of “Coming to Jones Road”

The new exhibition “The Cup Flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran” starting in October 2023 and runs through the end of November 2023:

The Art from the soul of Iran.

Gallery Bergen: September 21 – November 21, 2023

(From the Gallery Bergen Website)

In Munich, Germany:

Glockenbachwerkstatt Community Center with events at the Bellevue di Monaco Cultural Center in Munich, Germany: 

October 24 – December, 2023

Works from “The Cup Flows over: Art from the Soul of Iran” exhibition

Gallery Bergen announces the opening of a collaborative exhibition of contemporary Iranian artist to take place this fall in two locations – its own gallery on the campus of Bergen Community College in Paramus, NJ and the Bürgerhaus Glockenbachwerkstatt (Glockenbach Townhouse Workshop) located in Munich, Germany. The Cup Flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran features work by prominent artists such as Berlin-based Parastou Forouhar, younger Iranian artists living and working in California and Berlin, as well as artists living in Iran. The choice of two separate venues divided between Europe and the US speaks directly to the reality of the Iranian diaspora. 

Art works from the “The Cup Flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran”

This exhibition seeks to move beyond the headlines to explore the ongoing and historic struggles of immigration and the diaspora experience, of merging with and simultaneously changing the culture of newly adopted countries. The artists make use of a variety of media including film, video, photography, fabric work and installation while invoking ancient Persian texts to describe their new realities.

Art works from “The Cup Flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran”

The title comes from an ancient Persian ghazal by the renowned lyric poet Hafez (c. 1365): 

“Last night I took my troubles to

                The Magian sage whose keen eyes see

A hundred answers in the wine

                Whose cup he, laughing, showed to me.

I questioned him, “When was this cup

                That shows the world’s reality

Handed to you?” He said, “The day

                Heaven’s vault of lapis lazuli

Was raised, and marvelous things took place

                By Intellect’s divine decree,

And Moses’ miracles were made

                And Sameri’s apostasy.”

He added then, “That friend they hanged  

                High on the looming gallows tree—

His sin was that he spoke of things

                Which should be pondered secretly,

The page of truth his heart enclosed

                Was annotated publicly.”

BY HAFEZ

TRANSLATED BY DICK DAVIS

Anonymous work from “The Cup Flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran” exhibition.

In the art of Iran, reality’s cup overflows.

The curators are organizing several livestreamed events that will connect the two spaces with live music, poetry and discussion. Opening receptions and events are planned for September 21 at Gallery Bergen (US) and for the Bürgerhaus Glockenbachwerkstatt on October 24. 

Art works from “The Cup flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran”.

The paintings “Death” and “Devil’s Confrontation” by artist Raven.

The Bürgerhaus Glockenbachwerkstatt (Glockenbach Townhouse Workshop) is located in the cultural and artistic heart of Munich. The “Glocke” is a popular community center with childcare, workplaces, art studios, and a neighborhood café. It is around the corner from the Bellevue di Monaco, a residential and cultural center for refugees. The Bellevue offers diverse culture programming ranging from panel discussions on topics of migration and diversity to films from and about the home countries of their guests, to theater plays and concerts presenting artists from all over the world (Gallery Bergen Website).

Performance artist Sholeh Asgary and artist David Rothenberg performing “Shabah e Baad”.

https://www.sholehasgary.com/

As part of the exhibition, Iranian-American sound/performance artist Sholeh Asgary and ECM recording artist/clarinetist David Rothenberg performed on November 3rd, 2023. In the performance of ‘Shabah e Baad’ (Ghost Winds), Asgary vocalizes recordings of water bodies transcribed into notation for voice with the help of electronics and synthesizers for notes beyond human capability (Gallery Bergen press release).

Performance artist Sholeh Asgary and artist David Rothenberg performing “Shabah e Baad”.

Art works from “The Cup Flows Over: Art from the Soul of Iran”

The exhibition in February to April 2024 is “Arrivals/Departures EAST80WEST: The Bicoastal realities of Immigration”. The exhibition’s theme is based on seven contemporary artists from both the West and East coasts that are connected by US interstate 80 and how they examine the bicoastal realities of new immigrants to the United States.

The “Arrivals/Departures East80West: The Bicoastal realities of Immigration”.

The “Arrivals and Departures” exhibition gallery.

The exhibition was fascinating in that it looked at different perspectives of how immigration has happened whether forced or not. I think back to European immigration in the 1600 and 1700’s and how this affected the Americas to what is happening today.

The Yamar Paintings

The biography of Layqo Nuna Yawar and his work.

The works of Hobong Kim.

The exhibition explored different elements of how environment changes us and shapes us.

The exhibition also explores their sense of place in the scheme of life.

Do we erase part of ourselves.

It delves into a place of self. What an interesting aspect of life. How much of yourself do you have to give up to fit in?

The exhibition makes you think about this.

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