Artist to Artist: Michael Zansky and Bradley Rubenstein
D. Dominick Lombardi
Michael Zansky: Let’s talk about something like the film industry, where millions of people around the world look at something during the lifetime of the film and compare that to hanging a lonely little painting in a gallery, where maybe a few people see it and say "no fucking way?"
Bradley Rubenstein: I don’t know which part of that statement is the saddest commentary on our culture–the two things are probably really connected, like, if millions of people hadn’t reduced their attention span to 30 minutes then maybe looking really hard at something wouldn’t be such a heroic feat. Then, on the other hand, you are also talking about two really different things in a way–entertainment and art. And if you want to get really historic about it, entertainment is the much more serious subject. Court jesters got the ax if they weren’t any good–hence "entertainment or death." You know? Art just dies slowly from neglect.
MZ: I saw the movie Alien a number of years ago and when the monster exploded out of the guy’s chest, most people in the audience let out a scream in horror. I, on the other hand, started to laugh uncontrollably. If ever there was a perfect metaphor for the act of creating, this was it.
BR: That explains so much about your work.
MZ: Being chased around my apartment as a young kid by my parents led me to the Bronx Zoo where I started to draw the animals, especially the ant farm and the monkeys.
BR: The ant farm totally relates to the way you did the woodcarvings; the way the surface looks, although maybe, termites might have had a bigger influence than you think.
MZ: Maybe. What led you in the direction that your work took where you replaced human eyes with dog eyes in photographic portraits of kids?
BR: When I was a kid I sometimes would confuse animals and people. The older I have gotten, though; I realize that you really can tell them apart. Animals are usually nicer than people.
MZ: Recent news has discussed Darwin’s theory of evolution with the theory of intelligent design. Intelligent design as a principle of religion doesn’t hold up to my observations of the way things are. For example, why did God create the dinosaurs and then get rid of them? Why would he waste his time doing something like that? What fascinates me as well is all of the extra planets without anybody on them?
BR: How do you know there’s no life on other planets?
MZ: Well, according to you, kids with dog eyes proves my point that there is no design that can’t be fucked up more by man.
BR: Speaking of fucked up, let’s talk about your recent work for a minute. I don’t know whether you are going to call them drawings or paintings or whatever, I mean, you can’t even categorize them on that level. You’ve managed to combine all of your favorite subjects in them: mutant fetus-like things, the Bible, science and learning, Krylon–they are really remarkable. You see them from a distance and you don’t know what is going on, then you get up close to them and your really don’t know what is going on.
MZ: That’s family life for you! Getting back to the termites, I like them. They carve and carve and carve, until all that’s left is a lot of holes with air in them. I read recently that the earliest forms of life on earth were viruses that existed three and a half billion years ago. I think that the idea that God created a virus before he created man explains a lot. This work addresses the idea that whatever we create is a lot like a virus. Once you are infected with something: religion, politics or plastic, it won’t ever go away.
BR: It is a lot like art that way.
MZ: Looking at the buildings in New York I think about how many bricks it took to make this city, and the hands that laid the brick. All those hands are gone and there you are staring at the brick.
Michael Zansky, Bradley Rubenstein, and D. Dominick Lombardi are currently working jointly on the Intelligent Design Project. (www.intelligentdesignproject.com) The fruits of their labor will be exhibited next in SooVac Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, September of 2006, and in the future in The Philippines, Taiwan and The Netherlands.
