Artist talk av Andrea Zittel

Den amerikanska konstnären Andrea Zittel berättar om sitt arbete där hon med utgångspunkt i platsen A-Z West i Joshua Tree i Kalifornien på olika sätt undersöker vad vi människor behöver för att överleva. Hon är mest förknippad med sina living systems; häpnadsväckande utopiska konstruktioner för boende. I över två decennier har hon skapat minimala självhushåll där vardagliga aktiviteter som att sova, äta, laga mat och sociala situationer blir till konstnärliga handlingar.

Since the early 1990s, I have used the arena of my day to day life to develop and test prototypes for living structures and situations. By using myself as a guinea pig I often use my own experiences to try to construct an understanding of the world at large. The experiments have at times been extreme – such as wearing a uniform for months on end, exploring limitations of living space, living without measured time. However one of the most important goals of this work is to illuminate how we attribute significance to chosen structures or ways of life, and how arbitrary any choice of structure can be. I do not mean to deny the personal significance of these decisions, instead, I use my work in order to try to comprehend values such as “freedom,” “security,” “authorship,” and “expertise.” I am interested in how qualities, which we feel are totally concrete and rational, are often subjective, arbitrary or invented.

/Andrea Zittel