Michael Zansky at universal concepts unlimited - New York - Brief Article

Michael Zansky's sculpture has changed considerably since his last show in New York. While his characteristic supports of densely, sometimes erotically carved plywood remain the same, his amoebalike beings--fabricated of plywood, poured resin, wax and oil paint, and usually furnished with a glaring glass eyeball and dendrites or neurons that shoot out into the surrounding environment--are now set within larger formats that incorporate photographic elements.

This latest show was titled "In Human Life," a grandly vacuous moniker that is as likely to suggest a soap opera as a social panorama a la Balzac. The new protagonist is a puppetlike creation, "Z-Man." This doll-like, half-life-size, legless humanoid jackal with one eye and what seem to be brains for hair has been photographed in countless witless adventures staged by the artist. It is an alter ego one wouldn't wish on a dog, and a game projection of Zansky's mordant wit (and, perhaps, wisdom).

On the blond wood ground of one particularly imposing polyptych is glued a vinyl photograph showing a kind of tripartite cartoon speech bubble. At the bottom we see pontificating lips that might well be those of a senior politician or pundit, and above that a Z-Man in sickly shades of green. There is a bit of the talking head's forehead sticking up at the top for good measure. Panels to the right and far right deliver the more sexual--even pornographic--aspects of Zansky's work, one offering photos of female genitalia in a particularly lurid, black-on-red fashion.

What does it all mean? Can Zansky, the purveyor of smutty vinyl photographs, simply be the flip side of Zansky, the loving author of sensual wood carvings? Have our authority figures all become mouthpieces for the monstrous Z-Man harbored within? The existential questions stirred up by Zansky's occasionally grotesque new work puzzle us. With his Zen joking, this artist takes angst one step further--how much further we are too disarmed to say.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group