Artist Toby Barnes with exhibition: Body Electric (photo, Irene Sperber)
Okay, so get this: In 2012, NYC artist Bryan Zanisnik was served with a cease and desist letter for violating copyright of Philip Roth’s book The Great American Novel simply because he chose to hold a copy of said book as part of his installation performance at Abrons Art Center in lower Manhattan. What representatives of writer Philip Roth did, in fact, was catapult Zanisnik into considerable press coverage and scored space in publications of much intellectual gravity, given the import of Roth, a Pulitzer prize-winning author of over 30 books (Goodbye Columbus, American Pastoral, The Human Stain, Portnoy’s Complaint . . .).
Philip Roth Presidential Library (photo, Locust Projects)
What choice did Bryan Zanisnik have but to take this experience and enlarge it into deeper exploration of Roth’s impact on his, and our, world via a new installation at Miami’s ever envelope-pushing Locust Projects space. The artist recently spoke animatedly to a few of us valiant souls as Miami showed it’s bad winter self with wind, and rain and flooding outside. Oh my!
Zanisnik on his Abrons Art Center inspiration : “This installation overwhelmed the entire room, floor to ceiling, and in the center was this 12 foot tall structure that was basically a wind tunnel that circulated baseball cards and old US currency, and I would stand in it for 20 hours a week (in his underwear, for four weeks), just holding a Philip Roth novel, looking at it. It was this tableau performance, and I became another material within these thousands of other materials.”
“It was a kind of pathetic, non-performance performance within this huge installation.”
People wondered when the performance would start, as he stood there reading to himself. Philip Roth’s attorneys heard of the piece and sent the cease and desist order, working toward an injunction and full law suit.
“They claimed that by holding his book in public I was violating the copyright, which is an absurd claim.” “Technically, if you read out loud in a public place, it is a violation of a copyright,” by the pure interpretation of the law, never enforced, but it could be argued we gather.
He chose only one tome to read throughout the exhibition, Roth’s worst book according to some, The Great American Novel.
“Artist Violates Copyright Inside His Own Head” announced one headline, Zanisnik related. The media picked up the story and it began to give less than flattering PR to the Roth contingent. (The case was eventually dropped after much communication from some serious lawyering on both sides.)
“Roth became consumed with my tiny little performance on the Lower East side, and he’s a cultural icon”. “It was very Roth-esque.” remembers the artist.
“So much of my work, prior to that, deals with materials from my past,”…… “I’ve used my own family in performances, and I kind of felt like Roth became part (of it).” “There was this relationship between him and me.”
They’re both from New Jersey (Zanisnik currently resides in Queens) and deal with American culture similarly: “The lawsuit made him (Roth) more a part of my work.” the artist explained further. Zanisnik has expanded his Roth-iness into producing photographs, textiles and and comics inspired by the author.
“It (the lawsuit) grew and grew and I kind of thought that if I can’t just hold one book and read silently, I would just amass a whole library.” The new installation at Locust Project includes myriad Roth books which Zanisnik gathered from numerous sources.
“It’s kind of poking at him (Roth), but it’s sort of celebrating him too.” “If you walk around…….we have a dozen different languages, many editions, used, new, soft cover, hard cover, everything.,….”
Bryan Zanisnik's Philip Roth Presidential Library (photo, Locust Projects)
The full installation encompasses all of the main room of Locust Projects, each of the ten 13’ high sculptural sections soaring to the ceiling, bringing to mind a library setting and beyond with it’s homey entrance communicated with a sofa, framed photographs and a scrapbook of Zanisnik’s accounts with Roth. “They (the sculptures) are like crumbling architectural remnants, but also, post apocalyptic store displays, or book shelves; they feel like the’ve been ripped out of a wall.” Vintage wallpaper lines each library column, the outsides completed with a “Staten Island, suburban” stucco finish. “It’s formally engaging as sculpture.”
What would be your favorite Roth novel, I quizzed, “I’m reading Ghost Writer right now and I love it!” admitted Zanisnik.
We pressed on: “He puts it all out there, he is the opposite of the iceberg….you know what your getting into with him.”
I asked the intrepid Executive Director of Locust Projects, Chana Budgazad Sheldon, a quick question before stepping back out into the stormy depths of Miami’s wild child weather: “The melding of the literary and the visual arts is quite clear in this presentation, with a generous dollop of artists egos which came into play during the fracas of what constitutes misuse of others material. It brings out the practical and the ridiculous. What, to you, is the most intriguing aspect of this exhibition?"
CBS: “Bryan's practice as an artist seemed liked the perfect fit for Locust Projects when we he first made this proposal to us over a year ago. The work is experimental and experiential and he takes the site of installation into great consideration. There are a number of intriguing factors including the artist's commitment to devoting our entire space to very specific individual. I am also particularly excited about the way that Bryan embraced the height of our space with the magnificently tall sculptures, exploring the space as a disordered library and as a real functioning place where visitors can congregate and read Roth's novels.”
Locust Projects (photo, Locust Projects)
Zanisnik has a clear sense of the absurd and his own droll bent on Americana, as he picks apart the sturm and drang of everyday existence. Locust Projects is careful to leave it’s patrons with something to ponder as we exit their exhibitions.
Bryan Zanisnik: Philip Roth Presidential Library through March 19.
Also at Locust Projects: The Project Room has artist Toby Barnes exhibiting (until March 19th) for the first time in Miami with his new work, Body Electric. Born in Miami, the Thai-American artist currently resides in Massachusetts. Mixed media and found objects explore “the sacred in the every day….synthesizing Asian and Western iconography.” explains the gallery.
Locust Projects
3852 North Miami Ave
Miami, 33127
www.locustprojects.org
Upcoming events (Free and open to the public):
Wednesday, April 21, 7 p.m.
James A. Alsdorf, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
