‘Do We Make Our Lives More Difficult Than They Have to Be?’: Watch How Artist Bryan Zanisnik Found ‘Stillness’ in His Work by Moving to Sweden

The artist Bryan
Zanisnik used to equate suffering with success. Living in New
York as an artist isn’t easy for most people, and even though
Zanisnik was receiving institutional shows and critical acclaim, he
was still a self-proclaimed “nervous wreck,” always on the cusp of
financial ruin.

“I think there was maybe some fantasy of being an artist in New
York,” he says in a new exclusive video with Art21, filmed as part
of the “New York Close Up” series. But the darker side,
as he sees it, is an almost guaranteed struggle to make ends
meet.

The artist’s practice has often focused on the accumulation of
objects—to an almost manic degree. It’s an “idea of animism, that
an inanimate object has a spirit or personality,” he says. But
after years of working, he needed a break, finding what he
calls his big pivot: moving from New York to Stockholm, Sweden.
While in Stockholm, the artist threw himself into local culture and
new activities like mushroom foraging and hiking.

“I was really drawn to this aspect of Sweden where one’s career
wasn’t so closely tied to one’s identity,” he tells Art21, admitting that he found relief
in the separation of his work and selfhood. Though he has since
returned to New York, now living between the two cities, Zanisnik
has managed to find a happy medium. “Do we make our lives more
difficult than they have to be?” he asks. In doing work that is
joyful, he says, “there’s a stillness… maybe a relaxed mental
stillness there too.”

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part
of Art21’s New York Close Up series,
below.

This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration
between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking
artists. A new series of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art
in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch episodes
of other series like “New York Close Up” and “Extended Play” and
learn about the organization’s educational programs
at Art21.org.

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to Be?’: Watch How Artist Bryan Zanisnik Found ‘Stillness’ in His
Work by Moving to Sweden appeared first on artnet
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