Zaiac Unbound

t has been close to half a century since Jack Zajac first produced his series of bound goats, ram skulls, and crucified Christs, yet these sculptures remain just as arresting now as when they first debuted.With themes as timeless as life, death, and sacrifice, even the sculptor himself has been repeatedly drawn back to these early works, turning to them for renewed inspiration and personal introspection.Zajac initially traveled to Rome in the early 1950s to study painting as a recipient of a Prix de Rome fellowship, but, he remembers: "Clay was lying around in the studio, and I just picked it up."During that time, pastures dotted with goat and sheep herds still surrounded Rome, and Zajac was irresistibly drawn to the bucolic subject matter.In 1954 and 1955, he sculpted The Standing Lamb and its companion piece Kneeling Lamb, both quietly graceful, self-contained works, and returned his focus to painting.The following spring, though, the artist made a trip that was to change the course of his artistic expression.While traveling through rural parts of southern Italy, North Africa, Greece, and Yugoslavia, he witnessed various sacrificial rites celebrating Easter.Typically, a goat was flayed, roasted, and finally feasted upon in a ritual that symbolized the victory of eternal life over death.This exposure to an ancient practice reminded Zajac of religious elements that traditionally accompanied feasts but had, to a certain extent, become lost to the Western world.The spiritual and emotive components inherent in these rituals accordingly influenced Zajac to begin sculpting what was to become known as his Sacrificial Goats series.Aside from the appea l involved in the ancient aspects of ritual sacrifice, the sculptor was equally drawn to the "whole vocabulary" of the goat's anatomy "from the bones and the armature to the vulnerable belly, which," he noted, "is so big and so soft

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