Six of the seven winners of the Lucelia Artist Award have work on view in a special exhibition, Celebrating the Lucelia Artist Award, 2001–2006, on display now. Eye Level caught up with 2005 winner Andrea Zittel while she was at the museum installing A–Z Homestead Office for Lisa Ivorian Gray.
–How much of A–Z Homestead Office for Lisa Ivorian Gray comes with you, and how much of this piece did you acquire at the site?
More of this piece was acquired on site than I usually would. This belongs to somebody and she was using it as her office. But she put her whole office into storage, and I'm trying to simulate that here.
–How does her use compare to how you originally conceived it?
She commissioned this as an office space, so the hard part was to figure out how much of my own habits to impose on her. I sort of forced her into constructions I use myself, like hanging files. I use a kind of sleeve system when I work on projects, so I gave her that same system.
People always talk about how they think these things are really compartmentalized. I'm not really like that—it's more like the fantasy of being like that. It's not like there aren't five heaps of shit on my desk along with this sort of fantasy perfect solution I'm trying to force everything into.
–With a piece like this, do you see the museum as the final destination?
No, it's the use. The shortcoming with my work is always in this context. For years I struggled with that, and then at some point I realized, it is a shortcoming. In a way I'm glad that the work is ultimately destined for the world.
