Inherent
in the exhibition title A-Z for You, A-Z for Me is the notion
of duality, an idea integral to the artwork of Andrea Zittel.
Her artistic projects examine the binary relationship of
concepts such as self and other, work and leisure, art and
commerce, freedom and constraint. Zittel investigates this
topic through the design and construction of functional
dwelling spaces for which she also creates furniture and
accessories. Taking into account popular perceptions of
comfort, quality and aesthetics, Zittel's environments express
what she sees as the passionate American desire to structure
one's existence in order to reconcile life's intrinsic duplexities.
Zittel was born in Escondido, California and attended San
Diego State University, completing an undergraduate degree
in art in 1988. She then earned a Master of Fine Arts degree
from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1990. After graduation
she moved to New York, where she occupied a cramped apartment
that provoked her desire to invent one piece of furniture
that would satisfy all her needs and conserve precious living
space. Thus, as a struggling young artist, Zittel began
to make furniture from necessity. However, she soon became
fascinated by the extent to which one's living environment
and possessions concurrently reflect one's beliefs and modify
one's behavior. At that point, she began to make art that
arises from experiments with her surroundings and daily
routines.
Out of Zittel's initial efforts at furniture design came
her Living Units. Produced by Zittel's conceptual organization,
A-Z Administrative Services, the Living Units are simple,
compact systems that support everyday activity, incorporating
areas to eat, sleep, socialize and store minimal belongings.
According to Zittel, she needed "to design a system which
would efficiently and economically organize all such details
as food, clothing and space. As friends began to request
similar structures for themselves, A-Z [Administrative Services]
was created." (note 1.) Since the inception of her organization,
Zittel has created several series of usable artworks, including
beds, chamber pots and apparel, that address her early enterprise
to "serve people by designing objects to improve their lives."
(note 2.) The artist has observed that different owners
of these works react in potentially opposite ways to choices
she has made on behalf of the owners' life-styles. Certain
owners feel controlled by Zittel's decisions, while others
feel liberated by avoiding the act of choosing for themselves.
In addition to her involvement with stationary living structures
and their furnishings, Zittel has developed a keen interest
in mobile living arrangements and vehicles have become a
recurring motif in her work. For Zittel, vehicles symbolize
the bipolar yet coexistent needs for a secure, intimate
environment and for the freedom represented by unfettered
movement. The artist has christened her two latest vehicular
sculptures A-Z Yard Yachts, presented for the first time
in the exhibition at the University Art Gallery. The customized
interiors of these 24-foot trailers provide their occupants/travelers
with the safe familiarity of home or office. At the same
time, these ready-for-the-road artworks reflect Zittel's
genuine enthusiasm for adventure on the open highway.
The Stillpass Suites version of the A-Z Yard Yachts was
commissioned by Andy Stillpass, an art collector and owner
of an automobile dealership in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the
past, he engaged Zittel to create two other works: a uniform
that he can wear while he sell cars, and a television stand
for his home use. Stillpass has been a unique collector
of Zittel's art, assuming an active role in the design of
the objects that he commissions by articulating specific
needs and desires. With significant input from Stillpass,
Zittel produced Stillpass Suites to realize the collector's
vision for a streamlined guest house. After a voyage from
San Diego to Cincinnati at the conclusion of the exhibition,
this A-Z Yard Yacht will be located adjacent to the Stillpass
private residence, where it will accommodate overnight visitors.
Zittel has designed the Work Station rendition of the A-Z
Yard Yachts to reflect her requirements as an artist, producing
an office that will fulfill the demands of her professional
pursuits. Paradoxically, the exterior of the Work Station
(as well as that of the Stillpass Suites) is reminiscent
of the type of vehicle originally created to facilitate
the recreational tradition of the great American road trip.
The Work Station thus combines Zittel's twofold need for
labor and play, for responsibility and escape, and serves
as an artistic prototype for the increasingly intertwined
relationship of work and leisure. Following the exhibition,
Zittel will park the Work Station next to her home in Altadena,
a suburb of Los Angeles. The artist's recent move back to
southern California may indicate a longing to possess a
portion of the expansive terrain of her youth, while her
preoccupation with trailers may be associated with Californians'
particular attachment to their vehicles and their freeways.
In exhibiting the A-Z Yard Yachts together, Zittel intends
to focus attention on what has been an underlying dichotomy
in the conception of her work: what it means to invent something
for someone else and what it means to invent something for
oneself. Over the past several years, Zittel has engaged
in various strategies that explore her dual role as an artist.
She has created objects to suit her own purposes and, under
the rubric of A-Z Administrative Services, has provided
design services for her collectors/clientele. However, in
allowing certain collectors (such as Andy Stillpass) the
latitude to customize works themselves, Zittel has forced
these purchasers to analyze their own aesthetic sensibilities.
Most importantly, she has encouraged them to assess their
values and to question their motives for desiring these
unconventionally-authored works.
Zittel's two-pronged tactic of devising objects for others
and objects for herself is further demonstrated in A-Z for
You o A-Z for Me, the artist's first multimedia presentation.
The subject of this program is Stillpass, who in the guise
of an A-Z spokesperson recounts the various ways that A-Z
products have influenced his life. At the same time, the
presentation describes how Zittel has arrived at design
solutions for Stillpass by correlating his needs to her
own, ironically imbuing objects produced for him with the
qualities of artworks fabricated for her personal use. The
double-sided brochure that accompanies the exhibition continues
Zittel's comparison of designing for another and designing
for oneself. On one side, photographs and phrases depict
Stillpass and his environment, while on the other side images
and text portray the artist and her world. The style of
the brochure itself - two series of photos that indirectly
illustrate Zittel's artworks, overlaid with oblique quotations
by the artist and the collector - alludes to contemporary
advertising campaigns that superimpose suggestive imagery
with provocative narrative language, employing ambiguity
and ambiance to captivate the consumer. Zittel's reference
to the commercial world, in both multimedia and printed
forms, is consistent with her conjunction of artworks and
functional products.
The artistic projects of Andrea Zittel reconfigure the
relationship of artist and collector. The varying terms
of this relationship have led Zittel to consider the diametric
conditions of what she calls "being a consumer and being
a citizen."(note 3.) In her view a consumer makes choices
in a relationship of dependency, limiting oneself to products,
life-styles and ideologies that already have been made available.
A citizen, however, is capable of creating solutions beyond
the existing options, expanding one's possibilities through
a self-empowered position within the societal structure.
Ultimately, Zittel is interested in how the actions of both
citizens and consumers are influenced by their knowledge
and beliefs. According to Zittel, belief and knowledge share
a dichotomous alliance: we don't always believe what we
know to be true, and we often want to believe what we know
can't be true. Her artworks traverse the slippery territory
between such complex and quintessential dualities of life. |