The interests that drive Zak Kitnick’s work come from an observation of the boundaries between art, décor, and utility. Here, Kitnick appropriates the image from a decorative American bread poster by printing the encyclopedic display directly onto unfinished shelving. Riffing on modernist precedents, the grid of the bread is then subtly echoed by that of the crevices between the four shelving panels. Angled steel uprights, normally used to perpendicularly support the shelving, are then transformed into a decorative frame. The final work ingeniously makes these distinct typologies of art, décor, and utility interact with each other, cleverly multiplying their information. Zak Kitnick lives and works in Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited at The Emily Harvey Foundation, New York; The Queens Museum of Art, New York; l’Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Brest; P.S.1, Queens; and VAVA, Milan, among others.
Zak Kitnick
AMERICAN SHIPS (AMERICAN BREAD)
2013
direct-to-substrate print on unfinished steel shelving
47 1/2 x 28 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches