NEW YORK — Some visitors to the New Museum of Contemporary Art/Chelsea might mistake the artist Andrea Zittel’s uniforms for a still life fashion presentation.
But like much of what she does, Zittel’s handmade dresses are more complicated than that. For starters, she was known to wear an individual piece for weeks or even months, a habit that hammered home her practice of using everyday necessities as the impetus for her artwork.
In the last 15 years, Zittel has created a following for her art, which questions how individuals function in our brand-heavy society. In the early Nineties, well before Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood became a haven for artists, she was there, pipelining her needs and fantasies about clothing, shelter and furniture into art, even using her home as an exhibition space.
Zittel came up with the idea of wearing a uniform in 1990, when, as a new graduate student living in fashion-minded Manhattan, she was overwhelmed by having to spiff up her appearance after hours of toiling in her studio for her part-time job in an art gallery. That same year, she set up A-Z Administrative Services, a company name that borrows from her initials, pokes fun at corporate identities and hints at her encyclopedic ambitions.
“I had no money. I knew I was going to be in the studio every day and to have to look decent in the gallery was such a leap,” she said, standing beside a form displaying the sleeveless black linen tea-length dress she designed as her first uniform.
Beyond easing any fashion anxieties, the uniform provided a creative medium with an antibranding message.
“The whole vehicle of consumer capitalism becomes so oppressive and instills such fear in people, but they don’t always have to buy into that,” she said. “We’re all in this cycle of always doing something or consuming. But whenever you just stop, you can be in the moment.”
Opening the fold of what essentially is a wrap dress held up by a pair of leather suspenders, Zittel said, “It’s really a blanket,” recalling how she had to scour the West Village’s leather shops to find the suspenders.
More than 75 objects are being exhibited as part of “Andrea Zittel: Critical Space,” which is on display at 556 West 22nd Street today through May 27. The uniform area of the gallery also houses Personal Panels, Zittel’s apron dresses that were inspired by Russian constructionists whose design relied on geometric shapes. Once that chapter of her uniform dressing wrapped up around 1997, she started crocheting dresses including a hooded, Missoni-type look that took six weeks to make. She later decided to complicate the procedure by crocheting with her fingers instead of with a hook and needle.
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“I like the idea of making a covering for your body by using your body,” she said.
By the millennium, Zittel had taught herself how to make felt from raw wool and started making felt dresses, a feat that involved using a dress pattern made from an old shower curtain. While she has taken breaks from wearing uniforms, she said she always winds up going back to them.
She has a tendency to turn around what most people would consider to be limiting. In 2000, for example, she lived in a basement studio in Berlin without a clock for a week. Afterward, she pulled images from the video that recorded her every move and used them for an art piece. Her Escape Vehicle, a miniature Gulfstream trailer-type vehicle with a customized interior that looks like a rocky bench one might find near a waterfall, is another of the alluring pieces in the exhibition.
But Zittel said the uniforms remain personal favorites.
“After looking at all the work in this show, this is the one that feels the most alive and the most substantial to me,” she said. “It’s the only form of public art that isn’t compromised in any way. With sculpture like so many other forms of art, you have to worry about lawsuits or the longevity of a piece.”
A few of her uniforms will be sold in the $6,000 range and her hope is buyers will put them to good use. While some might question the hefty price tag, Zittel said, “It is a low price for art, but a high price for clothes.” The uniforms are typically purchased by collectors or institutions that support her do-it-yourself message.”
“I wish more people who bought them, or who will buy them, will wear them,” she said.