A
friend sits you down and asks you to honestly evaluate his
physical appearance, personal habits and overall lifestyle.
Sound like a red flag rising. But when Andrea Zittel was
approached by a fellow artist in 1992 to institute some
'self imposed' conditioning, she didn't hold back: She conducted
extensive interviews about her friend's daily habits and
made him document the amount of time he spent sleeping,
eating, working and exercising. She gave him a new haircut,
wardrobe and diet and streamlined his living space. She
brought a dozen trash bags to his house and stayed with
for hours until he parted with exactly 100 things. She designed
a customized program that reorganized and simplified his
day-to-day activities and provided once-missing guidelines
and discipline. Starting as a sort of lifestyle consultant
to a hapless friend, Zittel embarked on a complex career
as artist, designer, engineer, and advocate-offering thoughtful
commodities for contemporary sensibilities.
The imposition
of outside structure made the friend feel more confident
and relaxed. Zittel began to seriously consider the broader
cultural desire for perpetual structure and order. At that
time, Zittel had been experimenting with systems for breeding
and management of various animals and insects such as chickens
and houseflies. She was also experimenting with new concepts
of architecture, furniture and design, while trying to come
up with a solution to her own unfortunate living circumstances
(sleeping and working in 200 square foot rent storefront
with no bath of kitchen). When Zittel began to adapt the
various organizational schemes she had earlier applied to
animals to her own living systems, she ran into a little
trouble getting contractors and suppliers to take her design
need seriously. "My southern California 'mall girl' dialect
made companies in New York think I was calling on a prank,"
Zittel recalls. Adopting a corporate identity comprised
of her initials and an official logo, Zittel found a simple
formula for the professionalism and poise needed to gain
a busy contractor's ear.
With the success
of her first client in place and a solution to her own living
situation on its way, Zittel wryly created the Office A-Z
Administrative Services, a pseudo-agency under which she
began to promote and release various prototypes, designs
and ideas. The A-Z logo has stamped a series of collapsible,
portable Living Units with different models issued yearly
like a car. A-Z Comfort Units oblige the dream life of the
lazy: performing all daily tasks without ever leaving bed.
In turn, the A-Z Pit Bed and A-Z Platform Bed allow workaholics
to sleep inside or on top of their furniture. A-Z Ottoman
Furniture combines the basic need for storage with the custom
flexibility-instantly adapting to create whatever seating
of sleeping arrangement is need. The notorious line of vehicular
designs started with the A-Z Travel and Trailer Units, three
customizable RVs with identical green and silver exteriors.
For Zittel's exhibition at The San Francisco MoMA in 1996,
she asked her parents and a pair of trailer aficionados
to design two of the interiors. Along with Zittel's own
customized trailer, they took intricate individualized road
trips from the camper fabricator in San Diego to the museum's
back door. Combining the examination of archaic concepts
of 'frontier' in a modern world (where McDonald's is available
at every turn) with the realization that most RV users simply
park in one stop, Zittel created the A-Z Escape Vehicle,
futuristic pods with customizable interiors. The fantasy
of escape and mobile freedom without ever having to leave
home.
The 34-year-old
Zittel, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design,
smartly employs slick advertising strategies to promote
the concepts behind her designs. Her catalogs and promotional
materials combine the anticipation of mid-century appliance
ads with the accessibility of J. Crew pages. 'Totally True
Testimonials' (1997-98), an edition of 5 color prints, is
a campaign of smiling faces (friends of the artist) lauding
the virtues of everyday possessions such as power tools,
glassware and alcoholic spirits. "I love my new hair!" beams
Maria over Alberto VO5. "I feel like I get more respect,
both as a woman and as a professional." Zittel herself wears
her an official seasonal A-Z Uniform to increase efficiency
and relieve any "confusion and anxiety over dressing." Past
uniforms range from tailored wrap-around panels held up
by leather straps and her newest line of intricately hand
crocheted pull-over dresses.
Zittel's models
and prototypes are steeped in solid design principles and
the democratic ideals of early Modernism (common references
include De Stijil and Bauhaus). She encourages clients to
take her models and put them to the test. She never prescribes
one method of approaching a situation without providing
room for users to improve upon or experiment with her design.
"I had come to terms with the idea that once a product departed
from my own possessions, it would need to be claimed by
its new owner. What we forget is that there are at least
two author of every object: One is the designer, the other
is the owner." Despite Zittel's intentions, most art collectors
are reluctant to significantly alter the core of an A-Z
original. Most would rather defer to the authority of the
artist. But customization is an attractive commodity, and
minor aberrations from the prototype-a new fabric or color
scheme-are often made. The empty interiors of Zittel's 1996
line of A-Z Escape Vehicles were particularly popular. One
daring collector's purchase became a floating isolation
tank replete with underwater stereo system.
Zittel's bi-coastal
studios- A-Z West in LA and A-Z East in New York not only
function as combination habitat/showroom/laboratories, they
also inspire various works. (Zittel has also lived in Berlin,
where she recently spent a week putting herself through
her newest proposition, the A-Z Time Trial-blocking out
all sources of natural light and sound, living on her "own
time' for one week and documenting the patterns that emerged
on a time lapse recorder.) The New York studio is a turn-of-the-century
row house located in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn.
The house's ground floor showroom sports orderly glass display
cabinets and an enormous black Victorian upright piano that
belonged to the artist's great aunt. A-Z West is rambling
1930's farmhouse that was eventually engulfed by suburban
tract homes. Abandoned by the former owners in a state of
renovation, the raw space engendered a body of work reflecting
the beauty of deterioration and disorder. When Zittel bought
the house she surrounded it with a chain link fence, turned
the garage into a studio, dug up the lawn and planted cacti.
Living in California for the first time in many years, (Zittel
grew up in Escondido and attended undergraduate school in
San Diego) inspired the A-Z Thundering Prairie Dogs, three
giant mobile wood and steel shells into which viewers can
crawl and communicate with each other via microphone and
voice modulators. Trojan horses for a car culture, the A-Z
Thundering Prairie Dogs intend to liberate the idea of our
interior "true selves" from quiet reflection to amusement
park frivolity.
Zittel's version
of the 'sophisticated modern lifestyles' is decidedly not
stuffy. Crawling inside a giant prairie dog or entering
a chamber to take vacation from time invokes a curious mix
of adventure and fantasy not yet available at Ikea. A-Z
Deserted Islands, white fiberglass floating mounds that
resemble a cross between rudderless paddleboat and a small
iceberg, are inspired by the archetypal European moated
city and the distinctly American sensitivity to physical
rather than cultural boundaries. "American pioneering spirit
has created within us a real drive towards the possession
and protection of definable territory. This territory may
be identified by a green lawn and chain link fence, by our
desire to ride to work within the isolation of our own private
vehicle, or by our reluctance to share a restaurant table
with strangers," explains Zittel. The A-Z Deserted Islands
could feasibly be mass-reproduced as recreational vehicles
marketed as "individualized isolation within a safe and
comfortable environment." Short on lake or pond space? Zittel
loves the idea of simply digging a big hole in your backyard,
filling it with water and taking a few moments to yourself.
The A-Z Deserted
Island comprise one of the artist's first forays into issues
surrounding public space and the gulf between culture and
nature. "I personally have always felt quite shy and private
in public spaces," says the methodical artist. "I've always
wished that I could create an environment that would make
people like me feel more comfortable and less inhibited."
This interest led Zittel to reevaluate the notion of terrain
as "a way to define an arena that is neither designed furniture,
architecture, nor open ended environment, but a location
which can be occupied by the body, and which contains psychological
and social implications." This concept, along with a visit
to the monkey house at the Berlin Zoo, led Zittel to the
creation of Point of Interest, a faux landmass created specifically
for the gateway to Central Park at 59th and Fifth Avenue.
Point of Interest is a rocky-looking outcrop of concrete
and steel with built-in "natural" seating and a jaunty A-Z
Land Brand logo carved into the base. Part Flintstones,
part Olmstead and Vaux, the sculpture subtlety points to
the surrounding landscape's highly designed and orchestrated
origins. (Central Park was one of the most massive public
works projects of the 19th century, embodying the English
Romantic notion of pastoral landscape as source of moral
truth and goodness in the face of man's evil nature). Bored
with this antiquated view of nature as a gigantic terrarium,
Point of Interest illuminates our generation's contemporary
commodification of leisure time and nature into consumable
packages of adventure and recreation.
Zittel questions
the codes and values assigned to materials and design by
looking at progress as cyclical rather than linear. What
makes a certain color garish in one period and tasteful
in another? Why are some materials seen as a sign of luxury
while others are an indication of impoverishment? As Zittel
points out, "typical text book models of 'progress' see
evolution as a logical progression toward that which is
newer and better. I often wonder where this idea of progress
comes from. Many examples of evolutionary backslide exist
among other animals, so why is it that we are determined
to maintain this perpetual doctrine of advancement and reform?
One of Zittel's
newer works is the A-Z Pocket Property,"a piece of land,
habitat and vehicle all combined into a compact and consumable
package." Detachable fiberglass panels fasten around an
amorphous steel skeleton, framing completely customizable
living quarters with all modern conveniences. By living
on this floating home and documenting the experience (she'll
be creating a film about the pros and cons of Pocket Property
life), Zittel offers a "critique on the way in which our
culture constructs and then capitalizes on a human desire
for freedom, autonomy and isolation." If successful, Zittel
is happy to at least ask the question, 'What would it be
like?' She never pretends to have the whole answer. "In
a society that increasingly requires us to relinquish our
personal beliefs for the knowledge of 'experts,' I do not
want to become another expert with another answer. Instead
I want to show people that it is possible to become your
own expert, to try and create your own experiment."
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