Vito Acconci
| Vito Acconci | |
|---|---|
Acconci in 1973
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| Born |
Vito Hannibal Acconci January 24, 1940 The Bronx, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
College of the Holy Cross University of Iowa |
| Known for |
Landscape architect Installation art |
| Website | www |
Vito Hannibal Acconci (born January 24, 1940) is an American designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist.
Acconci was married to the artist Rosemary Mayer.
Acconci went to a Roman Catholic elementary school, high school, and college. He attended Regis High School in New York City. He received a BA in literature from the College of the Holy Cross in 1962 and an MFA in literature and poetry from the University of Iowa. A feminist from the start, he noted: "There wasn't a woman in my classroom between kindergarten and graduate school."
Acconci began his career as a poet, editing 0 TO 9 with Bernadette Mayer in the late 1960s. In the late 1960s, Acconci transformed himself into a performance and video artist using his own body as a subject for photography, film, video, and performance. Most of his early work incorporated subversive social comment. His performance and video work was marked heavily by confrontation and Situationism. In the mid-1970s, Acconci expanded his métier into the world of audio/visual installations.
One installation/performance piece from this period is Seedbed (January 15–29, 1971). In Seedbed Acconci lay hidden underneath a gallery-wide ramp installed at the Sonnabend Gallery, masturbating while vocalizing into a loudspeaker his fantasies about the visitors walking above him on the ramp. One motivation behind Seedbed was to involve the public in the work's production by creating a situation of reciprocal interchange between artist and viewer.
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