VITO ACCONCI
RETROSPECTIVE PROGRAM
2007

VIII MEDIA FORUM OF THE 29th MOSCOW
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
PRESENTATION PROGRAM

PERFORMING MYSELF
Vito Acconci Retrospective program
Curated by Nina Zaretskaya
June 26 - July 10

Acconci's early performances—including Claim (1971) and Seedbed (1972)—were extremely controversial, transgressing assumed boundaries between public and private space, and between audience and performer. Positioning his own body as the simultaneous subject and object of the work, Acconci's early video tapes took advantage of the medium's self-reflexive potential in mediating his own and the viewer's attention. Consistently exploring the dynamics of intimacy, trust, and power, the focus of Acconci's projects gradually moved from his physical body (Conversions, 1971) toward the psychology of interpersonal transactions (Pryings, 1971), and later, to the cultural and political implications of the performative space he set up for the camera (The Red Tapes, 1976).

Since the late '70s, Acconci has designed architectural and installation works for public spaces.

Vito Acconci Retrospective program:
Three Frame Studies, 1969, 10'58"
Two Cover Studies, 1970, 7'46"
Three Adaptation Studies, 1970, 8'05" Openings, 1970, 14'00"
Pryings, 1971, 17’10"
Conversions, 1971, 65'30"
Theme Song, 1973, 33'17"

Born 1940 Bronx, New York, USA. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Vito Acconci is a key late twentieth-century pioneer of performance, video, installation and the exploration of architectural space.

Initially a poet, Acconci began making Conceptual art in the late 1960s. A poet of the New York school in the early- and mid- 1960s, Vito Acconci moved toward performance, sound, and video work by the end of the decade. Acconci changed direction in order to "define [his] body in space, find a ground for [him]self, an alternate ground for the page ground [he] had as a poet."

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia