June 24, 2022
We are delighted to feature John von Bergen as the first contributor to our artist’s visual essay series. This series will be related to our feature topic, which until the end of June is ‘FAKE,’ but instead of an article, we will publish a visual essay from an artist. With this new section, we want to portray the world through the eyes of the artist to give insight into their process, their research sources or simply another aspect of their practice.
Von Bergen is primarily known for illusionistic wall pieces, which undermine the usual properties of a space—walls become stretchy, ghostly and morph into other materials. What is not so obvious, however, is that many of his materials are illusions as well: what looks like metal might actually be resin, rust might be rust or carefully applied paint. For the first photo essay, von Bergen presents a compendium of structural failures, or in other words, real cracks interspersed with documentation details of his own artwork, his process, and sometimes details of other artists’ artworks. For example, the 6th image from the bottom shows von Bergen in front of one of Ken’ichiro Taniguchi’s ‘Hecomi’ works.
