Andrea Zittel was born
in Escondido, California, in 1965. She received a BFA in painting
and sculpture in 1988 from San Diego State University, and an MFA
in sculpture in 1990 from the Rhode Island School of Design. Zittel’s
sculptures and
installations
transform everything necessary for life—such as eating, sleeping,
bathing, and socializing—into artful experiments in living.
Blurring the lines between life and art, Zittel’s projects
extend to her own home and wardrobe. Wearing a single outfit
every
day for an entire season, and constantly remodeling her home to
suit changing demands and interests, Zittel continually reinvents
her relationship to her domestic and social environment. Influenced
by modernist design and
architecture
from the early part of the twentieth century, the artist’s
one-woman mock organization, “A–Z Administrative Services,”
develops furniture, homes, and vehicles for contemporary consumers
with a similar simplicity and attention to order. Seeking to attain
a sense of freedom through structure, Zittel is more interested
in revealing the human need for order than in prescribing a single
unifying design principle or style. “People say my work is
all about control, but it’s not really,” she remarks.
“I am always looking for the gray area between freedom—which
can sometimes feel too open-ended and vast—and security—which
may easily turn into confinement.” Her “A-Z Pocket
Property,”
a 44-ton floating fantasy island off the coast of Denmark commissioned
by the Danish government, contrasts the extremes of a creative
escape
with the isolation that occurs when a person is removed from society.
Altering and examining aspects of life that are for the most part
taken for granted, Zittel’s hand-crafted solutions respond
to the day-to-day rhythms of the body and the creative need of
people
to match their surroundings to the changing appearance of life.
Zittel lives in California and New York.
For additional biographic & bibliographic information:
Andrea Zittel's Web Site | Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
Read more about Andrea Zittel on the Art21 blog |
