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Vito Acconci

Vito Acconci is a multimedia artist and architect best known for his socially subversive performances exploring masochism, voyeurism, and sexuality. Acconci initially studied poetry and writing, but began staging performances in 1969. His radical performances often involved provocative and disturbing actions like making prints from self-inflected bite wounds, stalking random pedestrians around New York City, and masturbating under the floorboards of a gallery. Along with artists like Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramović, and Chris Burden, Acconci was a pioneer of Body Art, a movement that broke with traditional media and emphasized the physicality, sexuality, and endurance of the performer.

In the mid 1980s, Acconci began creating experimental architecture, design, and public sculpture. In 1988, he set up Acconci Studio, an architectural practice that executes public commissions around the world. Acconci's utopian, biomorphic designs aim to approximate the complexity of living organisms. Both his artwork and his architecture are based on the social interactions between people and the blurring of public and private space.

Born 1940
Hometown Bronx, NY
Lives and Works Brooklyn, NY
Education
MFA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 1964
BA, Holy Cross College Worcester, Worcester, MA, 1962
Permanent Collection

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Smith College Art Museum, Northampton, MA
Stadlkische Museem Kulturbestitz, Berlin, Germany

Representing Galleries

Crown Point Press, San Francisco, CA
Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

SHOWS

Crown Point Press

San Francisco
Jan 09 2020 - Mar 07 2020

Crown Point in the '80s

Gilles Drouault galerie/multiples

Paris
Sep 03 2016 - Oct 08 2016

What do you read my lord ? - Words... words... words...

Crown Point Press

San Francisco
Jun 07 2016 - Jul 09 2016

Summer Choices: A Group Exhibition - 2106

The Bronx Museum of the Arts

New York
Oct 24 2015 - Jan 10 2016

(de) (re) Construct
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Articles

What to Say About Your New David Salle Print
What to Say About Your New David Salle Print

Friends coming over to admire the latest addition to your collection? Here's what to say about the artist's work to visitors

Barbara London on the Birth of Video Art
Barbara London on the Birth of Video Art

The founding curator of MoMA’s video program describes how Warhol and Bowie helped shape the form, and how gallery staff have had to acquire old skool TV repair man skills to keep early works looking good

Art & Stonewall: “None of Us Are Free Unless We’re All Free”
Art & Stonewall: “None of Us Are Free Unless We’re All Free”

The exhibition is on view this summer in New York City at both the Leslie-Lohman Museum and the New York University Grey Art Gallery.

On Presenting 100 Years of Art Through a Feminist Lens
On Presenting 100 Years of Art Through a Feminist Lens

Brooklyn Museum curator Catherine Morris discusses the current intersectional feminist exhibition on view, and the growing interest in curating collections exhibitions as a platform for institutional critique from the inside out.

Behind Some of the World's Largest Artist Grants
Behind Some of the World's Largest Artist Grants

You might be surprised by who and what is behind some of the art world’s largest patrons. Here are the stories behind six of some of the most recognized artist grants and awards.

Pipilotti Rist Says: Spit on Your Mobile Phone
Pipilotti Rist Says: Spit on Your Mobile Phone

In advance of her retrospective opening at the New Museum this week, here's an interview that renowned curator Massimiliano Gioni conducted with the artist about her life's protean work, from the new Phaidon monograph Pipilotti Rist:Pixel Forest.

6 of the Most Important Artist-Run Magazines
6 of the Most Important Artist-Run Magazines

Some of the most innovative artworks of the past half-century took the form of magazines. Here are a few you'll want to flip through (only one, alas, is still in print).

13 Transgressive Performances From Art History
13 Transgressive Performances From Art History

These works, each excerpted from Phaidon’s new book Body of Art, are some of the most famous examples of contemporary artists challenging the limits of safety, sanity, and decency in the name of aesthetics.

Eric Fischl on How Artists Find Their Second Act
Eric Fischl on How Artists Find Their Second Act

We spoke to the famed painter of psychosexual dramas about riding the ups and downs of the art market, the Koonsian model of business, and the problem with art-school programs today.

10 Exhibitions That Changed Contemporary Art
10 Exhibitions That Changed Contemporary Art

From the groundbreaking "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum (now being reinterpreted in a new show) to "WACK!" at L.A. MOCA in 2007, here's a survey of exhibitions that upended the way we look at art today—and how artists make it, too.

A Genealogy of Artists & Their Assistants
A Genealogy of Artists & Their Assistants

Who knew? Barnaby Furnas worked for Carroll Dunham, who worked for Dorothea Rockburne, who worked for Robert Rauschenberg. Our discoveries may surprise you.

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