Andrea Zittel at PSU

For those who missed the Andrea Zittel lecture at PSU last Monday, it definitely kicked off the 2008-9 PMMNLS lectures series with a bang (but we video'd part of it for you).

Though jam packed at its new location at Shattuck Hall (like most A-list Portland art lectures) the Zittel talk had plenty of oxygen on hand for attendee's to breathe. Chock that up to a modern HVAC system, it's the sort of thing you only notice when you don't have enough air. Anyone who has gone to major lectures at Reed's Vollum Hall or the old 5th Avenue Cinema location for PMMNLS noticed the difference. (*modest suggestion, Reed needs to get someone like Steven Holl to do a new university art museum and lecture hall... the Cooley and Vollum Hall are just too small for the kind of community engagement Reed is now doing)

At this lecture Zittel was her usual, orderly self and was good natured through the many early technical difficulties, but you'd expect that from someone who lived on a concrete island in Sweden for an entire summer.

Below is a video excerpt on the topic of her approach to personal space, architecture and uniforms:



Also, you can download Zittel's lecture archived here

My favorite part of the talk was when she compared her museum shows to "thrift shops," because the work is exhibited only after she's done really using her structures and other objects.

Just a fraction of the big crowd that Zittel encountered, Portlanders absolutely love free art lectures

Lastly, if you would like to support PMMNLS and PSU you can take part in PSU's online auction, and possibly snag an impressive piece of artwork from one of the pretty famous artists participating.

It was truly an inspirational lecture. I appreciated her articulation of the way she brands her projects into A-Z subsections, much the way she compartmentalizes architecture.

Zittel is an impressive creature of order, systems and taxonomy as a response to a very irrational world. It's even better when her very rational work produces somewhat irrational responses.