Acconci Vito

Publié le 16 octobre 2008 par Olivier Lussac

Biography

The influential, provocative and often radical art-making practices of Vito Acconci have earned him international recognition. Acconci has been a vital presence in contemporary art since the late 1960s; his confrontational and ultimately political works have evolved from writing through conceptual art, bodyworks, performance, film, video, multimedia installation and architectural sculpture.

In the 1970s, Acconci produced an extraordinary body of conceptual, performance-based videotapes that retain an astonishing originality and force more than twenty years later. Seminal tapes such as Theme Song (1973) and The Red Tapes (1976) are among the major works in the medium. Raw, crudely executed, and powerfully direct, Acconci's psychodramatic tapes enforce an intensive dialogue between the artist and viewer, the body and the self, public and private, subject and object, absence and presence. Acconci used video as a vehicle for an intimate expression of self through the other, exploiting both the inherent immediacy and mediation of the technology.

In his tapes, the body is a site for a physical and psychological search for self, with language as the catalyst. Video is equated with the close-up, an intimate theatrical space for face-to-face confessionals and actions. Intensely personal, often to the point of exhibitionism, Acconci's stream-of-consciousness monologues and performative acts, documented in real time by a fixed camera, chronicle the insertion of the private self into the public sphere.

Early tapes, including Pryings (1971) and Remote Control (1971), are body-based exercises in which controlled performance situations are used to explore the dynamics of interaction through self- concentration or manipulation. Increasingly psychological and language-based in their expressions of self, works such as Undertone (1973) and Theme Song (1973) are charged, one-on-one confrontations with the other as "you." Implicating the viewer as witness, voyeur, or accomplice, Acconci assumes a manipulative stance in aggressive or seductive encounters with the spectator, whose presence is integral to the works. Video allows him to undertake a rigorous examination of the "I" through the process of forming an intensely intimate yet mediated relation between artist and other.

Defining his identity in the context of his art-making Home Movies, (1973), Turn-On, (1974), later works integrate autobiographical and narrative strategies in what he has termed an "introduction to myself." With his 1976 tour-de-force The Red Tapes, one of the major works in video, Acconci ultimately moves away from the interiority of a psychological, personal space, towards the construction of a self within a cultural, historical, and social space. Singular in its psychological engagement, its testing of performance, conceptual and body art processes, Acconci's articulation of self through video remains one of the most fascinating and complex investigations in the medium.

Prior to and during the period when he was making tapes, Acconci also made a series of lesser-known Super-8 films. Dating from 1969 to 1974, these films further illustrate his distinctive engagement with conceptual art, performance and Body Art.

In contrast to the language-driven tapes, the Super-8 films are silent. Focusing on gesture, ritualized action, and the body as a performance object, Acconci uses nonverbal means to investigate relationships, limits, mirroring, manipulations, and transformations. Performing a single action in front of a stationary camera, he presents the body as a site for a series of often provocative conceptual exercises: He methodically pulls out the hairs from around his navel, boxes with his own shadow, and plays with trans-gender illusions, for example. Unflinchingly direct and minimalist in execution, Acconci's Super-8 films reveal a rich field of conceptual investigation, and provide a compelling complement to his classic video performances.

Vito Acconci was born in 1940. He received a B.A. from Holy Cross College and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. In 1987, a major retrospective of his work, entitled Vito Acconci: Domestic Trappings, originated at La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in California and travelled to sites throughout the United States.

His work has been widely shown internationally, in one-person exhibitions at the Sonnabend Gallery, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others. His work has also been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Documentas 5, 6, and 7, Kassel, Germany; Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial Exhibitions, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Kunstverein and Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany.

In addition to original fiction and poetry, Acconci has written critical pieces for catalogues and publications including New Observations, October, and Artforum. Among his numerous awards are grants from the American Academy in Rome; Berlin Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst; Guggenheim Foundation; New York State Council on the Arts; and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has taught at many institutions, including the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia; Cooper Union; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Yale University; and Parsons School of Design.

Acconci lives in Brooklyn, New York.

The influential, provocative and often radical art-making practices of Vito Acconci have evolved from writing through conceptual art, bodyworks, performance, film, video, multimedia installation and architecture. In the 1970s, he produced a remarkable body of conceptual, performance-based film and video works, in which he engages in an intensive psychodramatic dialogue between artist and viewer, body and self, public and private, subject and object.

Running Tape 1969, 30 min, Audio CD
Three Frame Studies 1969, 10:58 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8 film
Applications 1970, 19:32 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Corrections 1970, 12 min, b&w, sound, Super 8 film
Open-Close 1970, 6:40 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Openings 1970, 14 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film
Rubbings 1970, 5:06 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
See Through 1970, 5 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Three Adaptation Studies 1970, 8:05 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film
Three Relationship Studies 1970, 12:30 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8 film
Two Cover Studies 1970, 7:46 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Two Takes 1970, 9:40 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film
Association Area 1971, 62 min, b&w, sound
Centers 1971, 22:28 min, b&w, sound
Claim Excerpts 1971, 62:11 min, b&w, sound
Contacts 1971, 29:47 min, b&w, sound
Conversions 1971, 65:30 min, three parts, b&w, silent, Super 8 film
Filler 1971, 29:16 min, b&w, sound
Focal Point 1971, 32:47 min, b&w, sound
Pick-up 1971, 16:50 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Pryings 1971, 17:10 min, b&w, sound
Pull 1971, 32:37 min, b&w, sound
Remote Control 1971, 62:30 min, b&w, sound,
Two Channels
Two Track 1971, 28:35 min, b&w, sound
Watch 1971, 9 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film
Waterways: 4 Saliva Studies 1971, 22:27 min, b&w, sound
Zone 1971, 15:37 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Face to Face 1972, 15 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Hand to Hand 1972, 12 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Face-Off 1973, 32:57 min, b&w, sound
Full Circle 1973, 30 min, b&w, sound
Home Movies 1973, 32:19 min, b&w, sound
Recording Studio From Air Time 1973, 36:49 min, b&w, sound
Stages 1973, 32:30 min, b&w, sound
Theme Song 1973, 33:15 min, b&w, sound
Undertone 1973, 34:12 min, b&w, sound
Visions of a Disappearance 1973, 25 min, b&w, sound
Walk-Over 1973, 30 min, b&w, sound
My Word 1973-74, 91:30 min, color, silent, Super 8 film
Command Performance 1974, 56:40 min, b&w, sound
Face of the Earth 1974, 22:18 min, color, sound
Open Book 1974, 10:09 min, color, sound
Shoot 1974, 10:18 min, color, sound
Turn-On 1974, 21:52 min, color, sound
The American Gift 1976, 42:36 min, Audio CD
The Red Tapes 1976, 141:27 min, b&w, sound
Under-History Lessons 1976, 21:25 min, Audio CD
Ten Packed Minutes 1977, 12:47 min, Audio CD
The Gangster Sister From Chicago Visits New York (A Family Piece) 1977, 7:50 min, Audio CD
Election Tape '84 1984, 2:03 min, color, sound

BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Willoughby Sharp Videoviews Vito Acconci
Acconci, Vito and Kate Linker. Vito Acconci. New York: Rizzoli, 1994.
Acconci, Vito and Gloria Moure. Vito Acconci: Writings, Works, Projects. Barcelona: Ediciones Poligrafa, 2001.
Apples, Jonathan. "Acconci's Absence and Presence." Artforum, Vol. 15, No. 3, May 1977.
Gilbard, Florence. "An Interview With Vito Acconci: Video Works 1970-1978." Afterimage, Vol. 12, No. 4, November 1984.
Shearer, Linda. Vito Acconci: Public Places. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1988.
http://www.acconci.com