“Five Weeks in a Balloon”
by Bryan Zanisnik

Opening party with the artist:
Saturday February 23rd, 5-8 pm
Exhibition dates:
February 23rd – April 10th 2013

Ten Haaf Projects is pleased to announce “Five Weeks in a Balloon”, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn based artist Bryan Zanisnik. Featuring a new photographic series and a site-specific installation, these works comment on familial relationships, memory, the psychology of hoarding, and a recent legal battle between the artist and the American author Philip Roth.

In the site-specific installation thousands of images of outdated modes of transportation are combined with objects found on the streets of Amsterdam, collected from the apartment above the gallery and brought overseas from the artist’s childhood home in New Jersey. The images loosely reference Jules Verne’s 1863 adventure novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” constructing a narrative of that which is forgotten, inefficient and absurd. Read as a failed archive of ambiguously sourced materials, the work also functions as the physical manifestation of personal memory and desire. At the opening on February 23 the artist will present a new performance within the installation.

“Capgras Syndrome True Indigo,” is a series of photographs documenting Zanisnik’s parents as they rearrange an earlier site-specific installation. Moments captured include the artist’s parents falling asleep to Zanisnik’s father putting his finger inside the mouth of a grotesque mask. The images feel staged, yet candid, and exist between a family snapshot, a stylized portrait, and the documentation of a sculptural intervention. Accompanying these images are two new photographs of sets constructed in the studio. The objects in these photographs consist of faded wallpapers, images of Philip Roth book covers, the painted initials P. R., and memorabilia from the artist’s adolescent trips to Europe.

Bryan Zanisnik lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received an MFA from Hunter College and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 2012 solo exhibitions included Aspect Ratio, Chicago, IL; Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic; and Abrons Arts Center, New York, NY. This will be Bryan Zanisnik’s second solo exhibition at Ten Haaf Projects.