Andrea Zittel, “Prototype For Billboard at A-Z West: Body in Space with Object #1” (2011) © Andrea Zittel (courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles)
The Miller Institute for Contemporary Art presents Andrea Zittel: An Institute of Investigative Living, a solo exhibition of new and existing work by Andrea Zittel, curated by Elizabeth Chodos. This exhibition surveys the last 15 years of Zittel’s ongoing investigations into the forms, patterns, and materials that shape our daily lives.
Andrea Zittel’s work rests at the intersection of art, architecture, and design. A world-builder, Zittel’s practice manifests within her live/work residence A-Z West: an artwork and homestead located on over 70 acres in the California high desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. Since its inception in 2000, A-Z West has functioned as an evolving testing grounds for living — a place in which spaces, objects, and acts of living all intertwine into a single ongoing investigation into what it means to exist and participate in our culture today.
Zittel’s personal life and artistic practice have entailed exploring complex relationships between our need for freedom, security, autonomy, authority, and control — observing how structure and limitations often have the capacity to generate feelings of freedom beyond open-ended choices. The exhibition demonstrates the immersive gestalt of Zittel’s all-encompassing practice where every material aspect of daily life is examined and her ethos for living guides all action.
Andrea Zittel: An Institute of Investigative Living continues at the Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University’s Purnell Center for the Arts (5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213) through March 8, 2020. For more information, visit miller-ica.cmu.edu.
