Vito Acconci
Vito Acconci (January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His performance and video art was characterized by "existential unease," exhibitionism, discomfort, transgression and provocation, as well as wit and audacity, and often involved crossing boundaries such as public–private, consensual–nonconsensual, and real world–art world. His work is considered to have influenced artists including Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley, Bruce Nauman, and Tracey Emin, among others. Acconci was initially interested in radical poetry, creating 0 to 9 Magazine, but by the late 1960s he began creating Situationist-influenced performances in the street or for small audiences that explored the body and public space. Two of his most famous pieces were Following Piece (1969), in which he selected random passersby on New York City streets and followed them for as long as he was able, and Seedbed (1972), in which he claimed that he masturbated while under a temporary floor at the Sonnabend Gallery, as visitors walked above and heard him speaking.
In the late-1970s, he turned to sculpture, architecture and design, greatly increasing the scale of his work, if not his art world profile. Over the next two decades he developed public artworks and parks, airport rest areas, artificial islands and other architectural projects that frequently embraced participation, change and playfulness. Notable works of this period include: Personal Island, designed for Zwolle, the Netherlands (1994); Walkways Through the Wall at the Wisconsin Center, in Milwaukee, WI (1998); and Murinsel, for Graz, Austria (2003). Retrospectives of Acconci's work have been organized by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1978) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1980), and his work is in numerous public collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art. He has been recognized with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1976, 1980, 1983, 1993), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1979), and American Academy in Rome (1986).[6] In addition to his art and design work, Acconci taught at many higher learning institutions. Acconci died on April 27, 2017, in Manhattan at age 77.
Known For | Directing |
---|---|
Most Rating | 0.052 |
Birthday | 1940-01-24 |
Place of Birth | New York City, New York, USA |
Also Known As |
2006
You're Going to Die!
0/0
"You’re Going to Die!" is a children’s story exploring one simple idea ad nauseum bonum. This video treatment by Dennis Palazzolo adapts prose by Timo...
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You're Going to Die!
2008
Chelsea on the Rocks
5.889/9
Chelsea on the Rocks celebrates the personalities and artistic voices that have emerged from New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel. Once considered an un...
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Chelsea on the Rocks
1999
Steven Holl: The Body in Space
0/0
"Steven Holl: The Body in Space" explores the career of the innovative, highly renowned American architect. In this portrait Holl presents some of his...
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Steven Holl: The Body in Space
2016
Burden
5.9/13
A probing portrait of Chris Burden, an artist who took creative expression to the limits and risked his life in the name of art.
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Burden
1981
How to Fly
0/0
A completely nonlinear collage of unconnected scenes.
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How to Fly
1980
Journeys from Berlin/1971
9/5
An epic meditation on psychoanalysis, the Baader-Meinhof, feminism, and pre-revolutionary Russia.
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Journeys from Berlin/1971
1972
Seedbed
0/0
“In this legendary sculpture/performance Acconci lay beneath a ramp built in the Sonnabend Gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he masturbated eig...
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Seedbed
2013
Revenge of the Mekons
7/6
Documentary about the Mekons.
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Revenge of the Mekons
1972
Undertone
0/0
"In this now infamous tape, exemplary of his early transgressive performance style, Acconci sits and relates a masturbatory fantasy about a girl rubbi...
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Undertone
1971
Centers
0/0
Poet and artist Vito Acconci points his finger towards the camera and his own reflection in an offscreen video monitor.
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Centers
1971
Pryings
0/0
A documentation of a live performance at New York University, Pryings is a graphic exploration of the physical and psychological dynamics of male/fema...
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Pryings
1970
Digging Piece
0/0
Standing alone among beach dunes, Acconci begins to kick at the sand below him. Over the course of the film's ten minutes, this repeated action displa...
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Digging Piece
1970
Flour/Breath Piece
0/0
The artist, covered in flour, tries to blow the flour off his skin.
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Flour/Breath Piece
Two Takes
0/0
Acconci oftens performs controlled actions as if he had entered into a contractual agreement to test his physical limitations. In Grass/Mouth, Acconci...
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Two Takes
1970
Gargle/Spit Piece
0/0
The artist, sitting naked, takes water from a pot into his mouth and gargles; he spits it out onto his stomach and groin, transferring the water from...
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Gargle/Spit Piece
1971
Conversions 1
0/0
In these three exercises, Acconci plays with trans-gender illusions, manipulating and altering his own body parts to suggest sexual transformations.
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Conversions 1
1970
Three Adaptation Studies
0/0
Three-part short film. In 'Blindfold Catching', a blindfolded Acconci reacts, flinching and lunging, as rubber balls are repeatedly thrown at him from...
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Three Adaptation Studies
1971
Remote Control
0/0
The two-channel piece Remote Control is an exercise in manipulation and control between artist and subject, male and female. On separate channels, the...
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Remote Control
1971
Claim Excerpts
0/0
A documentation of one of Acconci's most notorious performances, Claim Excerpts is a highly confrontational work, an exercise in self-induced, heighte...
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Claim Excerpts
1971
Association Area
0/0
This early performance tape is an example of what Acconci has termed his "quasi-ESP exercises," in which he explores mental concentration and intuitio...
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Association Area
1974
My Word
0/0
In this feature-length silent film, Acconci uses hand-written title cards to present an "interior monologue" about speaking, language, and silence. Th...
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My Word
1974
Turn-On
0/0
The back of Acconci's head is seen in tight close-up. He hums to himself, first lyrically, then aggressively, violently. Suddenly he wheels around to...
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Turn-On
1973
Willoughby Sharp Videoviews Vito Acconci
0/0
This early document is a videotaped interview ("videoview") of Vito Acconci by Willoughby Sharp during which they discuss Acconci's development as an...
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Willoughby Sharp Videoviews Vito Acconci
1977
The Red Tapes
0/0
A three-part video epic in which avant-garde artist Vito Acconci explores the relationship between the self and national mythology. Through multiple v...
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The Red Tapes
1981
14 Americans: Directions of the 1970s
0/0
The multiple means of making art after the end of illusionism led these artists to create performances, sculptures, earthworks, tableaux, furniture, s...
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14 Americans: Directions of the 1970s
1991
The Golden Boat
6.1/7
Inspired in form by American police TV shows and soap operas, The Golden Boat is a madcap, surreal dash through the streets of New York city, telling...
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The Golden Boat
2009
The Art of Time
0/0
Explores some of the most innovative attempts by contemporary artists, filmmakers, architects etc to explore multiple Temporalities and to counter the...
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