Andrea Zittel
The Flat Field Works
13 June–27 September 2015
Middelheim Museum
Hortiflora and Braem Pavilion
Middelheimlaan 61
2020 Antwerp
Belgium
Andrea Zittel, Flat Field Works (Middelheim Variant #2) (detail), 2015. Installation view, Middelheim Museum, Antwerp. Courtesy of the artist, Sadie Coles HQ, London and Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. Photo: Simon Vogel.
Annonce sur e-flux :
« New installation at Hortiflora
Zittel’s work often traverses the boundaries between art and architecture. In the Hortiflora area at the Middelheim Museum, Zittel’s newest work consists of an installation that examines the roles and potential of flat « panels » or « fields »—in reference to the horizontal and vertical panels that comprise the most basic elements of our domestic and urban environments.
Zittel believes that our surrounding realities are made up of panels that exist both as literal and in a psychological field of reality: « The Dynamic Essay about a Panel »—a visual presentation in exhibition pavilion the House—explains how we attribute meaning and use to these surfaces depending on their position or orientation in space. Panels can be rigid or flexible; they can provide shelter or divide rooms; and they can delineate certain areas.
Horizontal panels naturally function as platforms for actions and behaviour—these are the sites where life happens (floors, tables, benches, fields, streets). She terms these sites « energetic accumulators. » Vertical panels privilege the eye and are the carriers of messages and ideologies (walls, screens, paintings, billboards). Zittel calls these « ideological resonators. » Sometimes, panels traverse both dimensions and become three-dimensional (e.g., cloth draped over an object or on the body). She now more frequently exchanges the word panel with the terms « field » or « plane, » as these words suggest both physical and psychological dimensions.
Ultimately, however, Zittel’s interest lies less in the architecture or structures themselves than in how they are experienced both physically and psychologically. In a culture where we are increasingly being fed an endless stream of stimuli that we are never able to fully process or utilize, she hopes that these platforms, boundaries and divisions will create moments of pause—a heightened attention to the sometimes-fleeing nature of the realities that we construct around ourselves. Rather than being functional in a « literal » sense, these structures reflect on issues of space, context, and the physicality of how we experience things in the world. The artist quietly undermines our assumptions.
Works in the Braem Pavilion
The works installed in the Braem Pavilion represent a selection of pieces executed over the last several years. Similar to the Flat Field works, these also explore the format of a rectilinear « panel. » Handwoven textiles, carpets, steel, and sculptural works point to the distinctions that we make between art (a conceptual object) and design (a functional object); painting (two-dimensional) and sculpture (three-dimensional); and representation (illusion) and reality (the actual object). The artist’s aim is not to dismiss these various categories and value systems, but rather to expose them and understand the psychological reasons inherent to the need of people to confer personal and social relevance on objects. »