A-Z Wagon Station customized by Russell Whitten, 2003. Powder-coated steel, MDF, aluminum, acrylic, Lexan, two velvet pads, dirt bike jersey and pants, helmet, boots, gloves, three gears, photos and lip balm, closed: 61 x 82 x 57 inches (154.9 x 208.3 x 144.8 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,Purchased with funds contributed by the Young Collectors Council and Geoffrey Fontaigne  2007.40. © Andrea Zittel

Perhaps no other contemporary artist has fused the traditionally distinct disciplines of art, architecture, and design as much as Andrea Zittel. Since the early 1990s, Zittel has been designing alternative structures for living under the guise of her fictive one-person corporation, “A–Z Administrative Services.” For her A–Z Wagon Stations, begun in 2003, Zittel developed temporary living shelters that reference both the covered wagons of the old western frontier and the standard suburban station wagons of today. Although the Wagon Stations do not have wheels, they are easy to collapse, transport, and reassemble. Their small size allows them to evade building codes, providing the inhabitant with the potential for greater freedom and autonomy. As with Zittel's prior designs, the Wagon Stations are “customized” in various ways by their users. A number have been adapted by artists and other individuals for use at A–Z West, the experimental live/work compound Zittel founded in 2000 in the desert near Joshua Tree, California. The Guggenheim has acquired two Wagon Stations: The first was customized by Russell Whitten, a longtime desert resident and dirt bike enthusiast, who painted the exterior with a hot rod design of red flames and employed it as a rest station at A–Z West. The second, one of Zittel's unaltered prototypes, will be customized in consultation with the artist at a later date.

Ted Mann