Bryan Zanisnik | Carl Jung’s Assault Rifles THE GAME

Bryan Zanisnik
Carl Jung’s Assault Rifles THE GAME

Carl Jung’s Assault Rifles THE GAME is a new sculpture by artist Bryan Zanisnik that references life-sized board games. Using hand-painted letters on wood panel, the work juxtaposes Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious with assault rifle manufacturers. “Libido” flanks “Beretta” and “Psychoid” adjoins “Colt Defense” in small, triangular floor spaces that mimic a game board or map. The abject relationship between Jung’s spiritualism and the violence of assault weapons suggests a complicated relationship between violence and psyche, games and aggression. Inspired by the hand-painted wood signs found throughout the Southwestern desert towns that Zanisnik explored during his artist residency at MOCA Tucson, the work simultaneously responds to the seemingly endless mass shootings occurring in America.

Bryan Zanisnik was born in Union, New Jersey and currently lives between Stockholm, Sweden and New York City. He received an MFA from Hunter College and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has recently exhibited and performed in New York at MoMA PS1, Sculpture Center, and the Brooklyn Museum; in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Fabric Workshop and Museum; in Miami at the De La Cruz Collection; and in Los Angeles at LAXART. Zanisnik is included in Art21’s award-winning documentary series New York Close Up, has been a featured guest on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC and is a contributing writer at Triple Canopy. Bryan Zanisnik will perform in the installation during the opening reception on January 13.