Vito Acconci gave a Visiting Artist Lecture at the Arts Research Center on September 28, 2016.
Vito Acconci was a contemporary American poet, performance artist, and architect—a founder of the Performance Art movement. He has been immortalized in the canon of art history for his seminal works, including the infamous Seedbed (1971), which Marina Abramovic re-performed in 2005. In the original performance, Acconci positioned himself beneath a wooden ramp in New York’s Sonnabend Gallery, where he masturbated for eight hours a day over a three-week period, and broadcast his fantasies through a loudspeaker while viewers walked overhead. “I was thinking I was doing a version of Minimal Art, except for the fact that I was using my body,” the artist said of his early work. Born on January 24, 1940 in The Bronx, New York, he went on to earn a BA from the College of the Holy Cross and an MFA from the University of Iowa’s writing program. In the 1980s, Acconci turned to sculptural works and installation pieces, including furniture, and in 1988 formed an eponymous group of architects and designers who design public buildings and projects. He had also taught at many institutions, including the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the Cooper Union, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Yale University. He lived and worked in Brooklyn, NY until his death on April 28, 2017 from a stroke.