Andrea Zittel
Prototypes for Billboards at A-Z West, 2025
7569 Girard Avenue
22' x 22'
Drs. Lisa Braun-Glazer and Jeff Glazer – Wall Sponsors
Andrea Zittel’s mural Prototypes for Billboards at A-Z West transforms the language of billboard advertising into a vehicle for artistic and philosophical inquiry. This image originated from a series of paintings created between 2005 and 2013, in which Zittel reflects on the differing modalities of illustration compared to fine art and how either medium can be used as a form of propaganda. Riding that fine line, Zittel created a series of billboards to promote a list of principles she has been developing since the 1990s. This list, titled these things I know for sure, embodies deeply held convictions that straddle the divide between objective truth and personal belief. Most of the billboards combined an image of her daily life with an accompanying principle, reinforcing the ways in which personal experience informs broader ideological systems.
In this piece, which is unique within the series because it is without text, the striking visual language of a winding ribbon punctuates a quiet landscape. The mural invites contemplation on how we negotiate and impose our will on the world, with the ribbon serving as a metaphor for control, support, and connection—an extension of agency within a complex, structured reality. Situated in a prominent intersection that connects the village of La Jolla and Bird Rock neighborhoods, the mural functions much like a billboard, engaging passing pedestrians and drivers in fleeting yet impactful encounters. This positioning echoes Zittel’s original concept of using the language of advertising to provoke thought, transforming the everyday act of moving through the urban landscape into an opportunity for reflection. The scale and placement of the work reinforce its presence as both an artwork and a conceptual signpost, quietly inserting its layered themes of agency and belief into the public sphere.
Zittel’s broader practice investigates the structures and systems that shape daily life, including principles of living, design, and self-sufficiency. Born in Escondido, California, in 1965, she received her BFA from San Diego State University and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her acclaimed project, A–Z West, is an artwork located on over 80 acres in the California high desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. This long-term project functions as a continuously evolving living experiment where environments, objects, and daily life merge into an ongoing exploration of what it means to exist and engage in contemporary culture. Her work reimagines domestic environments, modular furniture, and wearable structures, challenging conventional ideas of function and necessity. Whether through her investigations into material economies or her reconsideration of personal and collective spaces, Zittel encourages a reevaluation of how human needs are shaped by cultural systems and individual choices.
Zittel’s work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions with the New Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Miller Institute for Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; and Museums Haus Lange Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany, Her work has been featured in major biennials including the Venice Biennale, Whitney Biennial, and California Biennial. She has created many significant site-specific works including installations for New York’s Central Park, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Denver Federal Center. In addition to her many notable projects, Zittel founded High Desert Test Sites in 2002, a non-profit platform for art and experiencesin the high desert in the California High Desert. Through this initiative, which now formally stewards A-Z West, HDTS has hosted more than 460 artists, 12 expansive site-specific programs, and 25 solo projects. Zittel lives and works in Joshua Tree.