“Atomic Burger Flipper” 
by Bryan Zanisnik

Exhibition dates:
March 14th – May 9th 2009
Opening reception with the artist:
Saturday, March 14th from 5-8 pm.

Ten Haaf Projects is pleased to announce the exhibition “Atomic Burger Flipper,” a solo show by Brooklyn based artist Bryan Zanisnik. The title refers to the iconic American gesture of cooking hamburgers, and its subliminal relationship to aggression and violence in American culture. Using photography, video and performance, Zanisnik’s work is made collaboratively with his family as a means to examining these issues of American identity, violence, absurdist humor and the mediation of family relationships.

In the videos “Remembrance of Things Past” and “Family Reunion,” Zanisnik’s grandmother portrays a Vietnam war veteran and a vindictive immigrant who attacks nearby Americans. These videos were originally shot by Zanisnik when he was 13-years-old, only to be stored in his parent’s basement for 14 years. Upon finding them, Zanisnik recontextualized the editing and presented them as both an absurdist artifact of his youth, and as an examination of war, immigration and family from a distinctively American point of view.

In the two most recent videos, “Further From Rope” and “Black Death BBQ,” Zanisnik creates fractured and absurdist narratives that examine his parent’s life in their suburban home. In “Further From Rope,” Zanisnik’s father leaves his home with a lamp plugged into thousands of extension cords and begins a search for his son’s body. In “Black Death BBQ” Zanisnik’s mother builds a bomb in the basement while her husband obliviously barbeques upstairs.

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Bryan Zanisnik was born in 1979 in Union, New Jersey (USA). He received a B.A. from Drew University in 2001, and a M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2009. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the US and abroad, and is held in numerous private collections.