Andrea Zittel
dal 9/2/2006 al 17/6/2006
Segnalato da
9/2/2006
Andrea Zittel
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Small Liberties. She creates experimental living structures that comprise an evolving body of different systems for living. Her work explores the friction between the prescriptive nature of externally enforced rules and the liberating potential of internally imposed parameters. Zittel current project, A-Z West, is a culmination of ten years of creating experimental domestic and external structures. This exhibition presents several Wagon Stations—small mobile units customized by invited individuals—from the settlement.
Small Liberties
The Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria presents
Andrea Zittel: Small Liberties, a selection of individually customized mobile units, many of which
have never been previously exhibited. Through the research, design and remodeling of her own
domestic and external environments, Andrea Zittel creates experimental living structures that
comprise an evolving body of different systems for living. Her work, which was seen in the 2004
Whitney Biennial, centers on the recognition that rules—generally understood as externally
prescribed and largely inviolable-are fundamentally arbitrary and can be reconfigured, investigated and explored on an individual basis. Embracing the notion that all aspects of ones existence, however quotidian and typically overlooked, can be an opportunity for contemplation, Zittel’s practice explodes the unfortunate move towards universal standardization we experience in
contemporary life, seeking to balance the tension between individuality and community, beauty and
use, material clarity/truthfulness and conceptual rigor This exhibition is organized by Shamim M. Momin, Associate Curator, Whitney Museum of America Art, and Branch Director and Curator,
Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria.
Andrea Zittel: Small Liberties includes multiple Wagon Stations created at the Joshua Tree site,
customized by invited individuals who have participated in the development of Zittel’s desert
community. These single-person units illuminate the basic tenets of Zittel’s work overall, the visual modularity of a system made simultaneously representative of specific personalities, locating moments of the liberating contemplation suggested by the exhibition's title. By transplanting them to an urban landscape, the simple clarity of the overall system of the stations is highlighted, while retaining the individuality of each object. The exhibition also includes a new audiovisual presentation, which is a visual diary with spoken and written narrative, chronicling Zittel's recent life and work in Joshua Tree.
Zittel's current project A-Z West (in Joshua Tree, CA), a culmination of the past ten years of
experimentation with these systems of living, is a fully realized compound and community within
the harsh, largely inhospitable, desert environment. Seeking an uncolonized, potentially sustainable space within an increasingly prescribed culture, A-Z West is an ongoing, research and design lab for a better world.
This exhibition runs concurrently with a mid-career retrospective, Andrea Zittel: Critical Space, on view at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Chelsea from January 26 to April 29, 2006.
ABOUT ARTIST
Born in 1965 in Escondido, California, Andrea Zittel received her B.F.A in Painting/Sculpture from
San Diego State University and her M.F.A in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. She
has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at venues including Philomene Magers Projekte, Munich;
Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Gallery Side 2, Tokyo; Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Sadie Coles
HQ, London; Susan Inglett, New York; Galerie Franck & Schulte, Berlin; Central Park, New York;
Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria; Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel; The
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Her work has also been featured in several group exhibitions including; “Tempo," Museum of
Modern Art; “Touch Relational Art from the 1990’s to Now," San Francisco Art Institute; “Art
Unlimited," Basel Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland; “Elysian Fields," Centre Georges Pompidou; “About
Place: Recent Art of the Americas," The Art Institute of Chicago; and “Who Chooses Who Benefit
Auction," New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. She has received numerous awards, including the 1999 Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation catalogue support prize, the
1996 Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation Award, and the 1990 Award of Excellence from the
Rhode Island School of Design.
The Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria is located at 120 Park Avenue at 42nd Street.
Gallery hours: Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursdays 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Sculpture Court Hours: Monday through Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays and holidays 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. T
Admission is free. Free gallery talks are offered every Wednesday and Friday at 1:00 p.m.