Bryan Zanisnik was born in 1979 in Union, New Jersey. Today, he lives travelling between New York and Stockholm, Sweden. His art discusses autobiographical and social subject matter through the use of videos, performances, installations, and photographs. His pieces include whimsical but strange and sometimes dreary elements as he explores the dynamic between performer and audience. I was drawn to this artist because he creates work that I normally don’t, and lately I’ve enjoyed learning more about conceptual and performance art. My favorite piece that he created was the Meadowlands Picaresque, which was a site-specific installation that was inspired by the Meadowlands swamps near his birthplace of Northern New Jersey. In this piece, he was interested in finding the ‘blank spots on the map’ and exploring them to discover what forgotten things they might hold. He wanted the viewers of this installation to be able to play and explore as if they were experiencing what he did when he got the inspiration for the piece.
“And maybe that’s also what really drew me: That it’s so much of the same thing again and again and again. It’s kind of monumental in its nothingness.”
– Bryan Zanisnik
In the 1900’s Zanisnik’s great grandfather supposedly wrestled a wolf in Ukraine. In 2007 he himself traveled to Ukraine and researched this story about his family and found out it was true. His piece titled, He is Not a Man is a live performance inspired by these events. Zanisnik invited a childhood bully to dress as the wolf and box him. The boxing match was real and Zanisnik lost in three rounds.
“I kind of think of building one of my installations as if I’m constructing a stream of consciousness sentence. That not every word leads into the next, but there’s an overall mood or feeling being constructed.”
-Bryan Zanisnik
In 2012 Zanisnik got a cease & desist letter from the author Philip Roth’s legal counsel for holding one of his novels during a performance piece. The utter ridiculousness of this legal battle inspired Zanisnik to create the Philip Roth Presidential Library, a series of giant sculptures made of drywall and wood that each held hundreds of Philip Roth novels inside. The installation both showcases Roth’s genius while also criticizing him and his big ego.
