To say Ahn Behrens, who passed away last Thursday, was involved in the local arts scene is like saying Tennessee Williams wrote a few plays.
It was entirely appropriate that Christine Goodman, her de facto successor, made the stunning announcement of Behrens sudden passing at an Art House show last week. What Goodman is to Hudson County arts this decade, Ahn was in the previous one.
Most knew her as a columnist for The Jersey Journal and The Waterfront Journal, where weekly she’d find gems of creativity to share, places we’d normally walk past without slowing down, people carving their own special niche.
But in the nineties, she and her partner, artist Peter Bill, ran Cooper Gallery on Grove Street, imaginatively, fearlessly, passionately.
A poet, journalist and artist herself (I purchased some of her brilliant shadow boxes), Ahn was an energetic supporter of the arts in all genres and a fierce defender of the importance of having art in Jersey City.
Her openings were THE event in that city for years, with visual and performance artists, writers, intellectuals and quirky types mingling through the gallery space and out into the backyard, where resided a beautiful sculpture garden.
Yes, she bemoaned the fact that many collectors were afraid of coming to that area (this was before gentrification) and had her disagreements with other arts supporters. But she had guts.
When someone literally blew up her gallery because it was showing photos of the effect of religious strife on Irish children, she vowed to rebuild, and that she did.
Sadly, no matter how many approaches she tried, she couldn’t keep Cooper Gallery going. Immediately there was a void in our lives.
Oh, you’d see her here and there, mostly at cultural events, and of course, she had her column and began teaching writing. But she had been the center of most everything for so long, championing artists no one had exposure to, as well as writers at her periodic open mics, one wonders how she coped. Maybe knowing she was instrumental in birthing the vibrant arts scene in JC was enough.
I remember long conversations with her on all kinds of subjects, her kind support of my own writing, the ever present cigarette, that quiet, girlish giggle, the glasses that seemed too small for her wonderfully landscaped face, and mostly the sense that as long as she was around somewhere, we were, all of us quirky types, never alone. – Joe Del Priore
Joe Del Priore is a frequent contributor. Comments on this piece can be sent to current@hudsonreporter.com.