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(upbeat music)

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ANDREA ZITTEL: Painting and sculpture,

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they're forms of representation.

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In some way, these are all attempts to

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talk about my own subjective

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interpretation of the world,

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and to also do something that will relate

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to other people's experiences within it.

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I grew up in very suburban southern

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California.

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I think my parents had this fantasy about

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building a country home in the middle of

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nowhere. So my dad built our home on the

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edge of a mountain. By the time I was in

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high school, it was completely built up,

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it was suburbia. It was only after I moved

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to New York that I realized what a gift it

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was to come from someplace so normal.

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I moved to New York in 1990, and the first

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place I lived in was this really tiny

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storefront, also in Brooklyn. At that time

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I was doing really different work. I was

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actually working with animals and breeding

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them. For instance, a breeding unit, not

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only would it influence the way that the

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animal would develop, but it would also

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have everything built into it that the

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animal would need for living. So you know,

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after doing this work and living in this

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tiny space for a while, I think that it

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started to make perfect sense to try and

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create structures like that for myself to

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live in. The living unit was meant to

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function for every single thing that I

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needed. You know, I didn't have a shower

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or a bathtub, so it had this large plastic

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sink that I could take baths in as well as

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wash my dishes in. It had a built-in

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kitchen area, it had a desk area, it had

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a sleeping area. It was sort of like

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building a house, just something I could

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own, and would be permanent and it would

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just go inside of the houses that other

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people would own. I literally believed

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that when I made that piece and I had it

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completely perfected. That it would solve

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all of my problems, you know? And it was

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this really wonderful period of my life of

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feeling like I was moving towards this

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concrete direction. And the irony is that

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when I finally finished the living unit

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and it was perfect there was nothing left

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to do to it, I felt completely despondent

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and very sort of, like, listless, and

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depressed. And at that point in sort of

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gauging my own reaction I had this

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revelation that no one really wants

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perfection. We're obsessed with perfection

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we're obsessed with innovation and moving

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forwards, but what we really want is the

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hope of some sort of new and improved or

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better tomorrow. I think that my work's

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always been influenced by the places that

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I've lived in. In fact, if you look at

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every body of work, you can trace it back

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to particular circumstances that I've had

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to deal with. Well, I mean, the kitchen is

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a good stop, sort of, on the A-Z tour

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because what I said about the kitchen and

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how I used the kitchen. Andrea is not a

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cook, right? Which is really obvious

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because she's got a teeny, tiny

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refrigerator and- my chicken lived in the

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kitchen. And her chicken lived in the

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kitchen. But you have this huge table in

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the presentation room which facilitates

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big dinner parties. We did stay strict to

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Andrea's, you know, sort of utilitarian

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bowl system of the small, medium, and

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large bowls. –So you just used bowls for

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your dinner parties? There were times

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when we just used-–I've always wondered

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if you cheated. - Oh, yeah. I think it's a

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really nice thing to talk about, is this

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floor. I always felt it was this modernism

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put into a domestic framework. One of the

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things, too, that I wanted to do with

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this house was to sort of reflect the

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earlier generations of modernism.

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I usually point to the outside, 
because that's really one of

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the most beautiful parts of the house.

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Particularly a garden in Brooklyn.

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The bathroom at the A-Z, Andrea's house,
is the tour de force of the house.

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It's sort of the epitome of 
organization, comfort, and utility.

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I mean, the floor is really particular in 
that Andrea hand-laid every tile, right?

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Painstakingly.

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Well, they come in square foot 
sections, but I did that by myself.

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And then you'll notice that the medicine 
cabinets, instead of throwing all

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of your stuff under the sink abyss,

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is organized in "Correction," 
"Tools and implements,"

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"Subtraction," and "Addition."

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And "Addition" is sort of obvious 
things of –

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cosmetics, skin lotion, deodorant.
And "Subtraction"?

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Is things for cleansing and taking away.

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And then everything on top is 
organized, labeled accordingly.

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That's sort of it for the bathroom, huh?

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For nine years I've been 
doing the uniform project,

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where I have one garment 
that I'll wear for a season.

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Originally it was for a six-month season,
now it's for a four-month season.

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Oh, this is a really good one. 
This is from last spring. And it's rayon.

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They kind of get worn out and 
tattered by the end,

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after wearing them for four months.
It started because I had an office job

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and I was supposed to wear 
something respectable to work

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but I didn't have that much money.
Sort of colorful spring dress.

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You know, most of the time, we can 
afford, like, one fabulous outfit

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that you really love to wear.
But there's some sort of social stigma

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against wearing the same thing two 
days in a row.

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So I decided that, you know, 
in my case, actually, like,

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variety seemed more oppressive 
or restrictive than continuity.

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So this is basically your standard 
personal panel.

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For several years, I could wear anything,
as long as it was made out of a rectangle.