birth
New York, United States, 1940
death
New York, United States, 2017
last update
25-09-2025
Vito Acconci (Nueva York, 1941-2017) began his artistic career as a poet in the mid-1960s. In his first pieces, he treated the blank page as a space where he could act, using words as material for movement and the page as a container. His works were poetic acts using various ingredients and materials like cassettes, walls or the chairs in a room.
Later on, his poetic actions moved from paper to gallery space, evolving into performances in which Acconci reflected on his own physical and psychological being. Both in his performances and his installations from the beginning of the 1970s, the figure of the artist always had a physical presence, either through films or recordings of his voice, whose sound afforded the visitor a very intense sensorial experience. Acconci proposed a new definition of the physical object and a space of shared experience between the viewer and the artist by disposing of the traditional borders between an artist and his public, an object and a temporal event, a work of art and its existence within a spacial and/or social context.
Little by little, after a period creating numerous installations in interior spaces (usually galleries or museums), his interest in spaces turned towards public spaces. In 1988 he formed the Acconci Studio, a work cell which brought architects together with artists whose work was developing in an architectural scale, and who envisaged environmental and architectural kinds of interventions. The power of the Acconci Studio's projects – where the artist remains committed to language, the body and his relationship with the space – consists of a dramatically rethinking what defines public space, and questioning our way of seeing it and using it.
Later on, his poetic actions moved from paper to gallery space, evolving into performances in which Acconci reflected on his own physical and psychological being. Both in his performances and his installations from the beginning of the 1970s, the figure of the artist always had a physical presence, either through films or recordings of his voice, whose sound afforded the visitor a very intense sensorial experience. Acconci proposed a new definition of the physical object and a space of shared experience between the viewer and the artist by disposing of the traditional borders between an artist and his public, an object and a temporal event, a work of art and its existence within a spacial and/or social context.
Little by little, after a period creating numerous installations in interior spaces (usually galleries or museums), his interest in spaces turned towards public spaces. In 1988 he formed the Acconci Studio, a work cell which brought architects together with artists whose work was developing in an architectural scale, and who envisaged environmental and architectural kinds of interventions. The power of the Acconci Studio's projects – where the artist remains committed to language, the body and his relationship with the space – consists of a dramatically rethinking what defines public space, and questioning our way of seeing it and using it.
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works
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documents
18 results
Psychologie bibliologique / [initié par Vincent Romagny]
document
[2016]
A12486
A12486
Coffee coffee / by Aram Saroyan
document
2007
A00211
A00211
Vito Hannibal Acconci Studio [Enregistrament sonor activitat]
document
26-1-2005
A.HIS.07271
A.HIS.07271
Actes d'arquitectura [Enregistrament audiovisual activitat]
document
26-1-2005
A.HIS.07211
A.HIS.07211
Vito Hannibal Acconci Studio [Reportatge fotogràfic exposició]
document
18-11-2004 - 14-2-2004
A.HIS.00024
A.HIS.00024
La vida desprès de l'art -- Capital financer, propietat immobiliària i cultura [Enregistrament sonor activitat]
document
12-5-2000
A.HIS.07268
A.HIS.07268
La vida desprès de l'art -- Capital financer, propietat immobiliària i cultura [Enregistrament audiovisual activitat]
document
12-5-2000
A.HIS.06906
A.HIS.06906
Airwaves / Vito Acconci ... [et al.]
document
1977
A08093
A08093
Think/leap/re-think/fall
document
1976
A12211
A12211
Will be at Hotel Earle, Washington Square North, room 226, April 3 to 14, 6 PM to 9 PM each night - Continuing at Sonnabend Gallery, April 7-21, 10 AM to 6 PM - Vito Acconci
document
[1973]
A05263
A05263
Will be at Hotel Earle, Washington Square North, room 226, April 3 to 14, 6 PM to 9 PM each night - Continuing at Sonnabend Gallery, April 7-21, 10 AM to 6 PM - Vito Acconci
document
[1973]
A05265
A05265
Notes on the development of a show (Sonnabend, New York; January 15-29, 1972) : Notes toward performing a gallery space / Vito Acconci
document
1973
A00366
A00366
0 to 9 [núm. 5]
document
1969
A02255.004
A02255.004
Street works [0 to 9 no. 6 supplement]
document
1969
A02255.006
A02255.006
0 to 9 [núm. 6]
document
1969
A02255.005
A02255.005
0 to 9 [núm. 3]
document
1968
A02255.002
A02255.002
0 to 9 [núm. 4]
document
1968
A02255.003
A02255.003
0 to 9 [núm. 2]
document
1967
A02255.001
A02255.001