WEBVTT

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[BRYAN ZANISNIK]
I'm ready to go...

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[MAN, OFF-CAMERA]
You ready to go? Okay.

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[ZANISNIK]
I mean, if you want, whatever.

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I was teaching at a SUNY college,

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right outside of New York City.

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And there's a student who never showed up.

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No big deal.

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He shows up in my afternoon class,

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and he's like,
"I just need you to sign this form,"

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"to say that you're going to
allow me to drop the class."

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And I said,
"Yeah, you haven't been here all semester,"

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"I'm not going to drop you on the last day."

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"You failed my class."

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And he says,
"Sign the form."

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I said to him, like,

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"This isn't even your class."

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"I'm teaching."

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So there's like twenty students watching this.

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Then he gets in my face more.

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So at some moment I had to stand up,

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and he chest bumps me.

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He throws me into the wall

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and he's like,
"Sign the damn form!"

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So he does one of these...

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and knocks everything off my desk.

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And he's like,
"You're not a real teacher!"

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"You're an art teacher!"

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"You all suck!"

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"Art sucks!"

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I failed him.

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I failed the student.

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["Bryan Zanisnik's Big Pivot"]

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I think that there was
maybe some fantasy

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of being an artist in New York.

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To some degree,
I feel that I'm living that fantasy.

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I get to make my work every day.

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Get to work with amazing people,

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amazing institutions.

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But on the other hand,

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I think a reality of having a practice

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and being in New York

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doesn't always meet up to one's expectation.

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It's really on the artist to

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produce the work,

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fund it.

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You just give everything to be an artist

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and you don't worry about financials.

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I would do projects where
I would collect thousands of objects.

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I would arrange them,
photograph them,

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move them,
build an installation.

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I like this idea of animism--

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that an inanimate object has spirit

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or personality.

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I think I was really drawn to

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the mystery

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or the adventure around acquiring these objects.

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It's very easy in the art world
to look like you've made it,

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and you really haven't at all.

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I mean, you can have so much
institutional support,

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but there's very little monetary gain
from that.

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I remember I had a show with a gallery,

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and I did this huge installation.

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I started making these sculptures.

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There were these tall columns
that objects were embedded in.

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If I sell them,
we just turn them on the side,

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send them off to whoever wants them.

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Write me the check,

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you can have these damn columns.

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I start building them,

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the fabrication crew meets with me

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and they're like,
"We have a problem."

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And I was like, "What?"

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They're like,
"We're worried your column"

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"is going to fall"

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"and kill someone."

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So I was like,
"Alright, what's the solution?"

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They're like,

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"We need to bolt the bottoms
into the concrete ground."

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I was like, "How do we get those bolts out
when we're done?"

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They're like,
"Oh, we just destroy it."

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So I was like,

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"Oh man, there go my columns I can sell."

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"I have to destroy them."

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I really wanted to take
a step back from what I was making

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to really be able to reinvent a new direction.

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I needed a break.

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I remember when I told people,
"I'm going to Sweden,"

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they said,
"Now you have made it!"

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Sweden, the promised land.

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The place where there aren't
any financial concerns.

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You don't have to worry about
having health care.

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You will arrive,

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and then you can have, like,
thirty exhibitions.

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The problem I ran up against is
I don't speak any Swedish.

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So when I went down to be like,

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"I'm an artist, give me your free money,"

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they're just like,

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"Okay, here's thirty forms in Swedish."

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"Good luck."

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I was really drawn to this aspect of Sweden

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where one's career wasn't so closely tied
to one's identity.

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So I started engaging in a lot of the activities
that are typically Swedish.

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Obviously hiking is a big thing,

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but in particular,
mushroom foraging,

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and learning mushroom identity.

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I remember one time riding the bus back

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from the national park to the city,

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and there were forty people on the bus,

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and every person was comparing
their mushrooms that they found that day.

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New York,
everyone wants to cut to the chase, right?

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You go out,
you meet someone,

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they're like,
"What do you do?"

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Then the questions come
without directly asking it.

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"How successful are you at what you do?"

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Like, "Are you someone
I want to know or should know?"

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But in Sweden you go out and people say,

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"Which is your favorite pastry?"

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That to me feels natural.

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But in our culture today,

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if you're not Instagramming every week--

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what you're working on,

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where you're going,

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what you're doing in the studio--

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people, especially in New York, say,

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"Oh, he or she no longer makes art."

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But I think the best way to manage that
is to look inwards.

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Do we make our lives more difficult
than they have to be?

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I think maybe there's a question of:

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if something comes too easy,

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or too joyful,

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is that as successful of a work?

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I've begun a new body of work.

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I'm using a painterly process.

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I'm really thinking a lot about
joy in my work,

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and what makes me happy.

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There's a stillness.

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I'm just kind of sitting in one place

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and repeating an action with my hand.

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I think, as much as I'm describing that
as a physical stillness,

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there's maybe also
a relaxed mental stillness there too.

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This new body of work I make,

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maybe people don't like it.

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Maybe people say,

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"Oh, Bryan's not a nervous wreck anymore."

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"He's not torturing himself."

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"He's not lugging five thousand subway tiles
across the country."

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Maybe there's also,
with age,

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a little more confidence to make something
that I really love making,

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and then maybe not worry so much
about the reception of it.

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I think I've gotten to a point where,
if I don't have opportunities,

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I'll still make that art,

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and I'll just become
the crazy man in the woods,

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who, like...

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I just yell at people to get off my property.

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And they're like,
"Oh, he's an artist."

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"He once had an Art21,"

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"now he's just a hermit
in that shack out there."

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I would run into this experience
again and again

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where I would meet someone

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and they would say,

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"Midsummer is coming,"

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a huge Swedish holiday.

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And I'd say,
"Oh, I know."

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They'd go,
"Crazy party."

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"We go into the woods."

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"We all get naked and run around,"

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"and we drink and we dance."

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"People, they dress as elephants
and dance."

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And I was like, "Wow."

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And the person says,
"I'm having one of these parties this weekend."

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I'm like,
"Oh, I'm not doing anything this weekend."

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They go,

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"Well you really have to find one of these
parties to be invited to then."

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They'd be like,
"Have a good day!"