Commodification on the Islets of Resistance
By Stacy Jo Scott
Fig. 1: Andrea Zittel, Escape Vehicle, 1996, Various Media, 60 x 40 x 84 inches, Various Collections.
Throughout her career Andrea Zittel’s artwork has revealed evolving ideas about how the perception of needs is socially constructed. While not self-identifying as a designer she turns to functional objects to examine the underlying forces that drive the habits of object use and what it reveals about the assumptions of Western capitalist society. Like a social scientist-cum-inventor she creates lived-in sculptural experiments that have the look of something someone might place in one’s home or see in a design catalog but on closer analysis reveal the underlying forces that shape one’s lived environment. While using forms evocative of consumer products, Zittel’s work provides an alternative to a depersonalized and abstracted labor. Her work gains further progressive potential through its modeling of her attempts to reconfigure the way in which she lives.
It is important to note that Zittel’s reformation of reality is placed in the ordinariness of daily life. In this way art is not disconnected from home, community or commerce. Rather than attempting to reinvent society as a whole she focuses on reshaping her relationship to it. As Nicolas Bourriard frames this impulse, “The question asked is less, ‘how do we rebuild’ than ‘are we trying to inhabit these places differently.” For example, while Zittel’s work clearly relates to commercial product design, by creating these objects in response to very individual and idiosyncratic needs they challenge their commodity status. If in a commodity system the mode of production is hidden from the consumer, in her work this system is confounded. Zittel examines her own needs and creates the product best suited to her needs. In their personalization they reject prototypicality, in their creation by the consumer they disrupt relationship to the market system. The inciting potential of Zittel’s work comes from her modeling this possibility to the viewer. Zittel makes clear that this empowerment of the viewer is her intention. As she has stated: “What I’m interested in is that each person examines their own goals, talents and options, and then based on these begins to invent new models or roles to fulfill his or her needs.” (Basilico) A sense of freedom and individuality in the midst of socially and institutionally constructed identities is crucial to support a sense of meaning in an increasingly branded society. The possibility of addressing issues of freedom and individuality through design is realized in Zittel’s Escape Vehicles (Fig. 1).
In much of her work Zittel knowingly blurs the lines traditionally demarcating art from design. In her Escape Vehicle series she further complicates her role by inviting other people into the design of her products. The Escape Vehicles consist of sheet metal covered capsules finished in the style of mass produced camper vans. The unity of their outward design’s precise, highly-finished exterior calls to mind the uniformity of assembly line constructed cars or appliances. Behind this uniform appearance is revealed the individual needs and desires of Zittel’s patrons and collaborators. Each interior has been customized to reflect the desires of each individual. One has been pillowed in velvet like a luxurious padded cell. Another has been transformed into a cave-like rock grotto. The implied escape is from impositions of corporate design in favor of personalized versions of one’s own sense of individuality and comfort. This drive towards individuality is a crucial aspect of Zittel’s work. While she methodically isolates and controls rules that shape how space is purposed, her focus is on engendering this depth of analysis to others.
The Escape Vehicle series provides a model for how non-artists are still driven to shape and define their mass-fabricated surroundings to reflect their personal desires and autonomy. Such widespread self-identification with one’s objects has increased in time with the identification of consumer goods with status. As Zittel identifies, “…in some ways our interiors have actually become externalized reflections of our soul.”(Basilico) This emphasis on interiority and the freedom of individuality is not without its problems. In Escape Vehicles Zittel also intended to touch on the experience of isolation, through literal encapsulation, of the suburban experience of her Southern Californian childhood. In this setting the focus on personal space and possessions created a lack of community-minded interaction where property was valued over collective good. Zittel describes the California of her youth as “where the frontier isolationist mentality has gone so far that your entire world is contained in your piece of property, in your house and your automobile.”(Basilico) Zittel’s interest in creating space and objects that exist outside of this insular and competitive focus on property is paradoxically worked out in the creation of goods. One significant criticism of her work revolves around problem of creating commodity in an attempt to subvert it. It can be argued that this act contains no challenge to the system of commodified goods that is at the heart of progressive critiques of late capitalism. I would argue that her works stand for the antithesis of corporate design, becoming an anti-commodity. This is most clearly evidenced in a project that has been ongoing since she moved to New York in 1990, the Personal Uniforms (Fig.2).
Zittel’s first job upon arriving in New York was at an art gallery where she became keenly aware of the social expectations surrounding the clothes she wore and her inability to fulfill the fleeting fashion standards of the art world.(Granata 542) While barely able to support herself on her gallery wage she was expected to dress everyday for work as though she was a member of a wealthier class. In response to this practical need of providing a wardrobe for herself she developed her first line of Personal Uniforms. A series of seven dresses, Zittel wore each exclusively for an extended period of time, eliminating the stress of trying to find appropriate attire. Further, in creating her own attire Zittel assumed her own power in shaping the designs closest to her and the image she projected to the world. No longer reliant on the goods of corporate designers Zittel positions herself at a remove from capital-driven consumer decisions of taste. This ability to step outside of the realm of commodity allows a freedom that remains elusive to even the most idealistic designers and artists. While most of Zittel’s work becomes a commodity upon entering the art market, her Personal Uniforms allude this inevitability by existing in the closed system of her own production and use. While wearing the same outfit for days is a relief for Zittel, it must seem like an unimaginable imposition for most. But for Zittel, this limitation of choice is a liberation. As she states, “What makes us feel liberated is not total freedom, but rather living in a set of limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves.”(Zittel 14)
As her Personal Uniform designs developed she became increasingly interested in isolating their construction from capitalist models of depersonalized labor. As a result the creation of her attire was reduced to more and more basic elements. Soon after her first Personal Uniform series she formed dresses out of only rectangular cloth. Like the Constructivists who believed cloth should not be artificially manipulated from its original rectilinear shape, Zittel wanted to use fabric in a way that showed no signs of corporate-taste driven style. (Morsiani 22) In this way she hoped to arrive at design more basic to her own self-articulated needs, going so far at one point as to create a Personal Uniform series out of cloth torn from the bolt and safety pins. Presently her Personal Uniform consists of hand-felted, un-processed wool. This extreme self-sufficiency calls to mind the rugged individualism of the frontiersmen and pioneers that first homesteaded the west. While the potential for revelation of collective issues of needs and taste-impositions is key, Zittel’s work remains largely a personal exploration. In modeling her anti-commodity design of dress Zittel emphasizes that design should largely be about correctness of fit with one’s individual needs rather than imposed by corporate designers or other taste-makers.
In the attempted placement of her personal life outside of the market system, Zittel’s use of product design exists at a cross-roads in the problem of the commodity status of art. Her questions are not focused around determining how to escape commodification. Rather, she seems to take this commodity nature as a given, that culture is now inescapably immersed in it. Rather than offering an alternative to the dominance of commodity in culture her work provides the possibility of creating zones of autonomy within this given. (Bourriaud) This autonomy is based on an exploration into one’s own actual desires and needs. With this personal understanding Zittel suggests that one will be able to address these needs independently of corporate-driven universal design. In the acknowledgement of the subjective nature of needs Zittel rejects a corporate imposition of taste. It is this desire to shape alternative modes of being while in the midst of the capitalist system that marks Zittel’s particular Utopian vision. Unlike past Utopian-minded designers who envisioned a universal reformation of society through design, the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements come to mind, Zittel’s goal is more modest. In its modesty perhaps lies its success. It actually seems possible to change one’s own life through changing one’s relationship to the systems and objects that surround one.
Zittel provides an unflinching analysis of what defines a person in a commodity-identified society. Placing her focus in the realm of consumer goods is especially relevant as personality becomes ever more related to brand-choice. Under these conditions collective and personal identity become manipulated by corporate designers whose task is to convince the public of the “need” for their product. The leveling of taste as orchestrated by the “covertly authoritarian system” of corporate power is most troubling in its presumption and support of homogeneity in identity. (Morsiani 28) It is these identities that lie at the heart of Zittel’s investigation. In identifying which design choices are based on one’s own perception of needs one resists the manipulation of corporate-imposed constructions of identity. This empowerment of personal choice is crucial for releasing people from fixational dependence on objects to prove their personal value and worth. In this way the humanity of the consumer is restored and allowed to participate in the capitalist exchange of commodity on more equal footing.
Fig. 1: Andrea Zittel, Escape Vehicle, 1996, Various Media, 60 x 40 x 84 inches, Various Collections.
Fig. 2: Andrea Zittel, A-Z Personal Uniform, uniforms of various fabrics, Emanuel Hoffman Foundation, permenant loan to Offentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel, Switzerland.
Basilico, Stefano, Andrea Zittel. Bombsite. Bomb 75/Spring 2001. May 2, 2009. <http://bombsite.com/issues/75/articles/2381/>
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Bollen, Christopher, “Andrea Zittel,” Artforum International, September, 2005.
Butler, Cornelia, “Live/Work Space,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. Ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 36-43.
Cash, Stephanie, “A-Z and Everything in Between,” Art in America April 2006, 124.
Colomina, Beatriz, Mark Wigley, and Andrea Zittel, “A-Z Drive Thru Conversation,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. Ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 44-57.
Cook, Robert, “New Deeds: A Frontier Practice,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. Ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 30-35.
Eakin, Julie Sinclair, “The Iconoclast,” Architecture, April 2006, p.27.
Freudenheim, Susan, “I Want to Create a World and Live In It Completely,” ARTnews September 2005, 120-123.
Granata, Francesca, “Exhibition Review: ‘Liberation through Limitations’: Andrea Zittel’s smockshop,” Fashion Theory, December 2008. p.541-546.
Kuo, Michelle, “Industrial Revolution: Production Notes,” Artforum International, October 2007, p.314.
Morsiani, Paolo, “Emancipated Usage: The Work of Andrea Zittel,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. Ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 16-29.
Myers, Terry, “Enlightening Field”, Tate Magazine, Issue 4. May 2, 2009 < HYPERLINK “http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue4/enlighteningfield.htm”http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue4/enlighteningfield.htm>.
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Rosenberg, Karen, “The Non-Manhattan Project,” New York Magazine, January 14, 2006, p.75.
Rowlands, Penelope, “Andrea Zittel,” Metropolis, May 1996, p.105-107, 141, 143.
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Smith, Terry, “The Rules of Her Game: A-Z at Work and Play,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. Ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 36-43.
Steinberg, “Roughing It,” Interior Design, August, 2005, p. 194-199
Talking with Allan McCollom, Diary 01: Andrea Zittel, Gabrius Spa, Milan. December 5, 2001.
Zittel, Andrea, “These Things I Know For Sure,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 14.
1. Talking with Allan McCollom, Diary 01: Andrea Zittel, Gabrius Spa, Milan. December5, 2001.
In his conversation with Andrea Zittel, Allan McCollom questions Zittel as to the possible dystopian nature of her work. He points to the proximity between her design “solutions” and those employed in authoritarian systems of management such as prisons. In countering Zittel explains that the development of her solutions is based in a genuine belief that her attempts will succeed in solving problems. Notable in her inclusion of “belief” in her process, she evokes sense of Utopian impulse important to Utopian-designers of the past such as the Bauhaus and Constructivists. Zittel also refers approvingly of Modernism as accepting and promoting belief in creating positive change. She aligns herself with this impulse, though tempering it with a practical understanding of the inevitable limitations on that progress. Another important aspect of the conversation revolves around the idea of boundaries. McCollom points to the boundaries of art/design and art/life and remarks that Zittel seems to be aware of these distinctions but not guided by them. Affirming that statement Zittel explains that those boundaries lost their relevance long ago. However she does say that definitions and distinctions are still a major impetus for her work. This conversation provides insight into how Zittel relates herself to ideas of Utopia as well as her relation to other dialog in art including the blending of art/design and art/life. Particularly revealing is Zittel’s straightforward insistence on her work’s problem-solving capacity and personal/Utopian goals.
2. Stefano Basilico, Andrea Zittel. Bombsite. Bomb 75/Spring 2001. May 15, 2009. <http://bombsite.com/issues/75/articles/2381/>
This conversation between Stefano Basilico and Andrea Zittel explores in depth Zittel’s relation to the various worlds of art, design and the general public. Particularly useful in explanation of Zittel’s critique of both the art market and corporate design. While acknowledging her connection to both she describes her position as oppositional. This interview also provides in-depth analysis of her relation to design and what key aspects determine her status outside that field. Namely, personal idiosyncratic nature of design and her critique of corporate control of design. She repeatedly emphasizes her desire to connect to a general public, while acknowledging her limited success in doing so. This highlights her belief that the public at large holds the potential for progressive evolution. She also emphasizes her purpose in design as addressing personal and critical issues in opposition to corporate control. This understanding may be the key to evaluating the complicity or critical potential of her work in relation to late capitalism. This article also provides important insight into the correlation between self-identity and property ownership as examined in Zittel’s work. This provides a link between individualism and inescapable commodification. Also useful in that she fleshes out how ideas of freedom, isolationism and capitalism correlate in her experience of American life.
3. Paolo Morsiani, “Emancipated Usage: The Work of Andrea Zittel,” Andrea Zittel: Critical Space. Ed. Paolo Morsiani and Trevor Smith: New York, Prestel Verlag, 2005. 16-29.
This essay provides a very useful evaluation of Andrea Zittel’s body of work to date. Provides analysis of Zittel’s ongoing project of highlighting contingent, socially constructed nature of needs. Published in a catalog of her career retrospective exhibition, this essay provides an in-depth analysis of each body of work. It evaluates her positioning herself as a corporation (A-Z administrative services) and the resulting possibility of both appealing to a wider audience and the potential of reflecting the desires of a priveledged class. Especially relevant is his questioning which society is shaping her statement on the “social construction of needs.” While pointing out this pitfall of relating to needs only within her social context he also suggests the significance of her insistence on positioning herself outside of what she might term the limits of the avant-garde’s “elitism, isolationism, and ultimate failure.” He also highlights her evolving use of art work as existing “in the artist”, rather than in the object. This is significant in the transference of its “self-referentiality” into the process of “creation, distribution, and use.” This provides the potential of disrupting the supposed inevitability of commodification. This is also significant in that it provides an alternative to Marx’s idea of depersonalized labor. Also significant is Morsiani’s linking of Zittel’s work to the idealistic design projects of the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements.
4. Granata, Francesca, “Exhibition Review: ‘Liberation through Limitations’: Andrea Zittel’s smockshop,” Fashion Theory, December 2008. p.541-546.
This article described one of Andrea Zittel’s more recent projects, smockshop and its connection to an emerging interest in sustainability in the art and design worlds. Recalling Zittel’s interest in creating simply wardrobe designs for her own use, smockshop solicits other artists to create designs for Zittel’s universal dress pattern. Another important aspect of this work is the creation of a small quasi-company to produce a large number of goods. This is Zittel’s closest connection to mass-production and still seems progressive on a number of levels. Mainly, the system of production attempts to configure ways of working and creating that may be more sustainable for the user and the producer. Priced at $300, they are supposedly intended to connect art to a larger audience. While in reality this price is out of reach for many, in terms of art collecting it is affordable. Also significant is Zittel’s intention of allowing artists more chances to make money from their goods in a setting that is still more progressive than gallery shops or high end corporate boutiques. This is a refreshingly honest acceptance of the day to day realities of working artists. If artists are able to make money from creative consumer focused work they arguably will be able to have more freedom to create non-commerical work. Another interesting possibility is that in addressing creative and progressive ideas in consumer goods the artists ideas will be made available to more people while also providing insight into the actual framework of life, rather than an abstracted depersonalized theory. This extends the Utopian potential of Zittel’s work to the greater society.
5. Stephanie Cash, “A-Z and Everything in Between,” Art in America April 2006, 124.
To begin her essay Stephanie Cash explains that she has moved into apprciating Zittel’s work where once they had put her off. This points to an interesting aspect of Zittel’s work as riding the line between crass commodity and social critique. This binary is reflected in debates of the artists role in late capitalism as one of either complicity or critique. What eventually brings Cash to appreciate Zittel’s work is the fact that Zittel lives in and wears her work. This is important in that while Zittel is knowingly producing commodity, she is actually trying to use them in her life. This points to a possibility of social critique in producing ones own goods outside of established market systems. This demarkating of zones of autonomy within a dominant system is similar to Baurriaud’s idea of Islets of Resistance or Marx’s Interstices. Also significant to Cash is Zittel’s diligence in pursuing and working out her ideas in the form of social experiment. Cash also highlights Zittel’s connection to earlier Utopian designers and the uniqueness of her willingness to so thuroughly live in her creation. Also highlighted is her use of ordinary objects as inspiration (such as campers, sailboats and cramped apartments). Also significant is Cash’s pointing out that while Zittel attempts to resist commercial system by making personal work and refusing mass-production this works to maintain the “precious-objectness” of her work, where it remains in the elite art world system. Cash also interestingly points out that Zittel’s work allows collectors to “play at an alternative lifestyle” such as living in limited and confined space. This recalls earlier critiques of primitivism in art which allowed collectors a sense of “edginess” and “reality” in the midst of the status quo nature of their life.
