It's been half term this week so I've had my three children off school and family staying so we decided to take them to the Quayside in Newcastle to have a walk along the Tyne, over the foot bridge then visit the Baltic.  Always a useful place to take visitors with a nice cafe and great shop full of funky bits of bobs, good for buying gifts.  Also the views from the glass elevator and the fourth floor viewing platform are truly spectacular along the River Tyne and over the city of Newcastle.

The Turner Prize is long gone now but we all enjoyed (maybe the children slightly less so) the Andrea Zittel exhibition.

ANDREA ZITTEL

Lay of My Land

10 FEBRUARY 2012 - 20 MAY 2012

Andrea Zittel is most closely associated with the remarkable utopian structures she calls Wagon Stations which explore what humans need for survival in different ways. Zittel’s projects are deeply rooted in her own daily life and delve into architecture, painting, photography, design, textiles, needlework and cooking.

At the beginning of the last decade Zittel founded A-Z West in the remote Californian desert and began creating the 'Wagon Station' units in which everyday activities such as sleeping, eating, cooking and socialising could become artistic actions.  

 

Born in California in 1965, Andrea Zittel’s 

projects are rooted in everyday life. In 1999 

she moved to the Mojave Desert with the idea 

of leading an experimental life and established 

A-Z West, a site that encompasses all aspects 

of daily living as ‘an ongoing endeavor to better 

understand human nature and the social 

construction of needs.’ At A-Z West routine 

activities such as sleeping, eating, cooking and 

socialising become artistic actions. For over 

two decades Zittel’s experiments here have 

included dressing in the same home-sewn 

uniform for months on end, living on an artificial 

island and living without measured time. She is 

best known for her ‘living systems’ that explore 

the fundamental elements of human survival. 

A-Z West consists of six gradually acquired 

parcels of land. It is located in an area where, 

from the 1940s to the early 1970s, the US 

Government gave people five acres of land 

under the Homestead Act as long as they 

could improve it by constructing an inhabitable 

structure. Today, the result is a seemingly 

infinite grid system of dirt roads and tiny, 

largely abandoned, shacks. 

Crochet

Zittel’s crochet works explore one of the 

fundamental principles of her practice: the 

possibility of freedom born from limitations. Each 

work is based on a specific self-imposed rule 

system that dictates the final form. Clasp 2010 

was made by making ninety-degree turns and 

three stitches in any given corner. The Bodily 

Experience of a Physical Impracticality 2010 

is a starburst of incremental units. The works 

have a contrasting relationship. Clasp holds like 

an embrace while The Bodily Experience of a 

Physical Impracticality evokes the body moving 

through space and is reconfigured each time 

it is shown. 

Raugh Sculpture

The Raugh (raw/rough) liveable sculptures are 

furniture modules that were also developed 

from the idea of freedom within limitation. Like 

Zittel’s crochet, these objects are built with 

strict organising criteria. The Raugh system 

plays with the idea of natural order. Zittel 

believes that things belong most naturally 

in the environment in which you place them.  

She sees the Raugh Bookshelf 2006 as an 

‘energetic accumulator’ that sucks life onto 

its surface. The Raugh sculptures adapt to 

domestic disorder and to the accumulation 

of dirt. The user is central to the functionality 

of the work and the customisation of the basic 

modules is an integral part of the process.

Wall Sprawls

The Wall Sprawl works are created using satellite 

images of uninhabited land that is starting to be 

developed. The images reveal the cultural context 

of the American Southwest and challenge the 

popular notion of the desert as a wilderness. 

The reality is a rapidly developing, complex and 

politicised space – its resources are exploited 

by the US Military and it has the fastest growing 

population in the United States. Wall Sprawl #2

(Las Vegas between Enterprise and Henderson)

2011 draws attention to the fringe areas that lie 

between the desert and large-scale development. 

Its pattern reveals different time periods, agendas 

and economic systems: expensive developments 

have organic forms, while cheaper developments 

follow rigid grid patterns. The use of repeated 

patterns, tiling and mirroring in the work echoes 

the sense of never-ending sprawl.

Lay of My Land 

In contrast to the Wall Sprawls, Lay of My Land

2011 emphasises the fact that the landscape 

has been divided into arbitrary sections and 

reveals a collision between natural geography

and man-made systems. Here, Zittel focuses 

on the concept of the parcel map, which 

superimposes a man-made system of 

measurement and distribution onto the land.

In practical terms, this historical process of 

division means that Zittel is not permitted to 

build across the boundaries between adjacent 

parcels of her own land. Zittel’s house, studios 

and a number of Wagon Stations are visible 

in the topography of this work. 

Wagon Stations

The Wagon Stations have sat on one of the six 

parcels at A-Z West for eight years. Close to 

destruction by the elements and the hostile 

desert environment, they have been relocated 

to a gallery setting at the end of their functional 

lives. The units were developed as part of 

Zittel’s High Desert Test Sites project to 

accommodate visiting artists. A station wagon 

was the smallest thing Zittel could imagine 

safely sleeping in; the Wagon Stations 

developed from this idea. It had to be possible 

for the structures to both withstand the 

elements and be small enough to be built 

without the need for permits. These 

requirements and restrictions have informed 

their design – the curved shape and leg 

supports allow the wind to move around them 

and their size is just sufficient for two people 

to sleep inside. They can also be locked and 

secured. The Wagon Stations offer a limited 

space that allows the bare essentials for living. 

Zittel wanted to experiment with living systems 

that could be left open for modification and 

customisation by those that inhabited them. 

All of the units in this exhibition have been 

customised by the people who used them

and made them their personal space over time. 

Studying interior architecture and exploring the efficient and best use of space this exhibition was of some interest to me.  Though in her experiment Zittel focuses on survival and the use of her specifically designed wagons, exploring the bare essentials required to exist in this case in the desert.  In this situation 'space' itself to reside in becomes a bit of a luxury.