artist installations

Bryan Zanisnik

CATTLE ON NORTH 9TH
1 Minute, 15 Seconds
DVD Video, 2006

Curated by: Renée Vara

"Cattle on North 9th" uses text, animation and historic cattle
imagery to examine urbanization and gentrification. The animation
refers to an 1843 New York Times article about a cattle stampede on
North 9th Street in Williamsburg. In the video, the cattle are
animated stampeding down a contemporary, post-industrial Brooklyn
Street. This juxtaposition of an urban landscape with bucolic cattle
imagery not only comments on the temporally changing New York
landscape, but also on the current gentrification of Williamsburg and the art world at large.

Bryan Zanisnik received a B.A. from Drew University, and is currently
completing his M.F.A. at Hunter College. His work has been reviewed
by the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Village Voice, and Tema
Celeste among others. Recent exhibitions include The Jersey City
Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University, Exit Art
in New York City and the Soap Factory in Minneapolis.

Renée Vara, is an curator/advisor, Adjunct Professor at New York University and Lecturer for the Guggenheim Museum, NY. Her last major show was featured as an Official Project at 9th Istanbul Biennale. A forthcoming book, The Intrepid Art Collector (L. Hunter, Crown Publishing: 2006), features her as an expert on collecting and the art world. She is quoted in numerous articles including Forbes, US News & World Report, Wall Street Journal and World Report, CNN, ArtNews. For more information, please log on to www.varaart.com

Voices

A group of students at Kisumu Boys High School make a film on the issue of social injustice.
Photo by Sara Feldman

Voices is an exhibition of photography and video depicting issues facing the youth of Kisumu, Kenya through their eyes. Using donated video and still camera equipment, these young people were given the opportunity to use creative expression to voice their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences.

With the belief that the solutions to community problems lie in communication, volunteers of community-based Abila Creative Center gave basic instruction on using equipment since some had never held a camera. The youth were invited to develop their own styles of creative expression to communicate about the issues important to them.

In a country of notorious corruption, where HIV/AIDS, prostitution, rape, alcohol and substance abuse, discrimination, crime, poverty, and unemployment are among the most commonly issues faced by young people, they are forced to make life and death decisions on a daily basis. Under such circumstances, it becomes easy to lose hope. The understanding of self-worth encourages these young people to sacrifice the instant gratification of high-risk behaviors for the hope of a brighter future. Through training, group and individual work, discussions, and ultimately an exhibition of the young people's work in Kisumu, it was clear that hope can come from validation of their lives simply by having their townspeople show up to look at what they created.

This year marks the start of the Voices project. With further exposure, and with needed donations of money, digital equipment and computers, this will be the first of many exhibitions and the start of a meaningful avenue of expression for the youth of Kisumu, Kenya. Additionally, Abila Creative Center is trying to grow its internship program by welcoming volunteers with skills they would like to pass on to the youth of Kisumu.

Pablo Lopez

The Oasis
Man’s most private surroundings serve as inspiration for Pablo Lopez’s environments. The Oasis is a video/sculpture installation that will live inside the public bathroom of the metropolitan pavilion for the duration of the Photo NY fair. Small video screens will play scenes of an urban natural environment. The video screens will also provide kinetic energy for the carefully arranged landscape of live plants. In The Oasis, privacy will be invaded by nature.

Pablo Lopez received a B.S. in Media Studies from New York University’s department of Culture and Communications. He is represented by Douz & Mille.