Priya Wittman Selects

I chose to present this selection of my written work based on my interest in dichotomies in material, and my belief that dichotomies are an inevitable in a work of art.

Andrea Zittel’s “Island” is a work that creates a space in which individuals can inhabit and explore the experience of existing simultaneously in a private sphere and a public environment. This space becomes amorphous, and maybe even contentious in its function and purpose. It is simultaneously public and private: individuals living in the space may become extremely lonely at times, and then receive visitors and feel inundated with people are others. Because it is inhabitable, it is a living space. Yet it is a space specifically for artists who create project proposals for the opportunity to live in the island. Does it then become a studio as well, or remain, very straightforwardly, a living place? Is there any point in distinguishing between the two? By creating a space that is potentially all of these things in one unit, Zittel not only asks questions about individualism and community, but also about the roles the island habitants take on when they move into this space. The space in which an artist functions and lives shapes the way they work and create. Zittel’s “Island” blurs the lines drawn between living and creating, and forces occupants to simultaneously address their roles as human beings and artists in a very private and very public space.