A-Z@LAMoCA

I got to see the Andrea Zittel "Critical Space" exhibit at LA MOcCA this weekend and it was (to no one's surprise) great. But it left me a little thrown off. I'd been largely acquainted with Zittel's work through reproductions and criticism, so going through it on my own led me to some things I hadn't really thought of about her work, and they weren't pretty. Here goes...

It's hard not to think of Zittel's work in terms of consumables. Mimicing a design studio, she makes delightful objects that one want to acquire. Looking through the exhibit, it was hard to ignore how many of these things were meant for her own use, and how others had been "customized" for collectors (I'm especially fond of the idea that Peter Norton needs a tidy little office from A-Z Administrative Services). I love art that can be part of the exchange economy as well as the economy of ideas, but a little light went off when someone said about Zittel's work that she "was alone a lot".

There's a monastic tradition in which one withdraws from the world to contemplate and pray and seek connection to god through solitude. However, asceticism ain’t cheap. In Zittel’s sculpture of solitude, one senses that moments alone for reflection are privileges, not rights. The gradual transition from severity to formal experimentation in her A-Z Personal Uniforms (above) implies a drift from discipline to austere luxury. The Met-Home just-so-ness of her structures – from the archly ironic airstream-inspired escape pods to the IKEA-slickness of her customized comfort units, there’s a feeling that the works perhaps too eagerly leapt into the embrace of the exchange economy. Aping a design agency is, on the one hand, clever and subversive (code for “good” in most art discourse, but not here) but on the other hand, a little bit too close to providing the kind of design advice persons in the position of providing patronage have come to expect from artists.

Let’s not kid ourselves, as great as Zittel’s work is as sculpture, it has limited implications for the design community – let alone for areas of social justice it nearly addresses (such as affordable housing). This is privacy for the privatized era. Solitude for the socially superior, hair shirts for those who wish to now and then trade in their Armani and Prada. The best thing that can come from this show (aesthetic delight notwithstanding) is that socially engaged designers might visit and adapt Zittel’s down market notions for populations in need of efficient, workable domestic design.

New addition

Just a note to point out that we've added Boot Print to our links on the right edge of the page. Check 'em out. We liked the fact that they felt responsible to

"...Art beyond the known institutional walls, geographical art centers, and parameters of the Artdome."

because who can resist that?

As always, we welcome suggestions for links and readings.

Required Reading

As a teacher, I've been interested in finding alternatives to big heavy text books for a long time. When I was a student, I always admired the professors who arranged their classes with course readers drawn from media sources and relevant excerpts from various books. This seemed to suggest a higher level of specificity about a class - as if its materials were too timely for the slow-moving textbook publishing industry. So when I started putting together classes, I started making readers. First came Xerox packets, then CD-ROMS and websites. Now I podcast parts of lectures and run a handful of course-specific blogs. I do all this because I think it will help - but I'm sure the textbook publishers think they're helping by concentrating info in one volume, too.

All this comes up because of two things that came across the radar recently - one is an article by Stuart Silverstein in today's Los Angeles Times (Panel Studies the High Cost of College Texts) about hearings into "inflated" book prices. The other is the announcement of a call for papers for a panel being organized by William Ganis of Wells College at the next CAA. "Beatified but not Canonized" proposes scholars look to the last pages of out-of-date art history books to see who the smart money was on at the time of publication. The panel plans to consider how the history of once-acclaimed/ now-obscure artists reflects larger political and aesthetic values. Hmm. Interesting.

What makes these things interesting to me is the combination of two things - first, the assumption that text books are overpriced in the present and, second, that their value might actually increase when they are out of date. I have a small shelf on my bookcase dedicated to wacky art histories that never made it -- books that try to explain abstraction to readers in the 40s, things like that. When students complain that textbooks cost too much and lawmakers start advocating for internet sources, we should pause and think what we'll lose when we trade in the text for the surging tide of internet communication. Information - they say - wants to be free. And it is...if you go to the library where it's usually on reserve. Online, nothing will ever go out of date because revisions will erase the bad information...along with any sense that history is a constant argument over whose story makes the most sense of the facts.

When I think about all the effort I put into learning how to teach when I was a student, I think I might cry. I realize now that teaching is (at best) a partial project for anyone. All one can do is try to coverone's beat adn hope everyone else your students see is doing his or her job, too. But students don't expect that kind of scattershot approach, and they have a right to expect more. Not more accurate or relevant information, but more about how to learn in the first place.