'Crash', photointaglio, aquatint, relief and shaped embossing by Vito Acconci, 1985

'City of Words', lithograph by Vito Acconci, 1999

Vito Hannibal Acconci (born January 24, 1940) is a Bronx, New York-born, Brooklyn-based architect, landscape architect, and installation artist. Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique. ... Lithography is a method for printing on a smooth surface, as well as a method of manufacturing semiconductor and MEMS devices. ... is the 24th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Bronx (disambiguation). ... This article is about the state. ... For other uses, see Architect (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Landscape architecture. ... Installation art uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way we experience a particular space. ...

His father was an Italian immigrant who took him to museums and opera houses and gave him his first arts education. Vito attended Regis High School on New York City. He received a B.A. in literature from the College of the Holy Cross in 1962 and an M.F.A. in literature and poetry from the University of Iowa. Regis High School is an all-scholarship, Jesuit, college preparatory school for young Catholic men. ... Not to be confused with Holy Cross College (Indiana) or other similarly named Holy Cross Colleges. ... The University of Iowa, also commonly called Iowa or locally UI, is a major coeducational research university located on a 1,900-acre (8 km²) campus in Iowa City, Iowa, US, on the banks of the Iowa River in East Central Iowa. ...

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. His performance and video work was marked heavily by confrontation and Situationism. In the mid 1970s, Acconci expanded his metier into the world of audio/visual installations. A poet (from the ancient Greek ποιητης, poïêtes (artisan) ; ποιέω, poieō) is a person who writes poetry. ... Bernadette Mayer (born in 1945 in Brooklyn, New York, United States) is a poet and prose writer. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1958 to the end of 1974. ... Performance art is art where the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time, constitute the work. ... Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and is comprised of video and/or audio data. ... Photography [fÓ™tÉ‘grÓ™fi:],[foÊŠtÉ‘grÓ™fi:] is the process of recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a film or electronic sensor. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... For other uses, see Video (disambiguation). ... Buskers perform in San Francisco A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people (the audience). ... Confrontation is a tactical tabletop fantasy wargame in which the combatants are represented by metal figures in 28-30mm scale. ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ...

One noted 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. Seedbed is a performance piece first performed by Vito Acconci on 15-29 january 1971 at Sonnabend Gallery in New York. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ... Leo Castelli (born Leo Krauss on September 4, 1907, at Trieste, of Italian and Austro-Hungarian Jewish origin, – died August 21, 1999) was one of the most successful and influential art dealers of the 20th century. ... Masturbation is the manual excitation of the sexual organs, most often to the point of orgasm. ...

During the 1980s he invited viewers to create artwork by activating machinery that erected shelters and signs. He also turned to the creation of furniture and to prototypes of houses and gardens in the late 1980s. The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ...

More recently, the artist has focused on architecture and landscape design that integrates public and private space. One example of this is "Walkways Through the Wall," which flow through structural boundaries of the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and provide seating at both ends. Midwest Airlines Center The Midwest Airlines Center (formerly Midwest Express Center) is a convention and exhibition center located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ... For other places with the same name, see Milwaukee (disambiguation). ...

Another notable example is his Dirt Wall (1992) at the Arvada Center Sculpture Garden in Colorado. The wall begins outside the Arvada Center and extends inside, rising from ground level to a height of 24 feet. The glass and steel wall contains a mixture of volcanic rock, various types of sand, red dolomite, and topsoil which are visible through the glass panels, and represents an attempt to bring what is underground up, and what is outside in.

He has taught at many institutions, including the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia; Cooper Union; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Yale University; and the Parsons School of Design. He currently teaches at Brooklyn College. The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD) is a post-secondary art school located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. ... Entrance to CalArts on McBean Parkway The California Institute of the Arts is commonly referred to as CalArts. ... The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a privately funded college in Lower Manhattan of New York City. ... The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is a fine arts college located in Chicago, Illinois. ... YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment) is an environment for machine learning experiments and data mining. ... The Parsons School of Design, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, is a design school affiliated (since 1970) with the New School University. ... Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York. ...

See also

• Murinsel

A piece of Architecture in the City of Graz, Austria on the Mur River. ...

Articles

• Orlandoni, Alessandra "Interview with Vito Acconci" - The Plan 020, June 2007

External links

• The artist's website (acconci.com).
• Guide to the 0 TO 9 archive from the Fales Library at NYU.
• Artist's page in Artfacts.Net with actual major exhibitions.
• An appreciation of Acconci by critic Jerry Saltz.
• 2 pieces of Sound Poetry on UBUWEB.
• Art videos directed and performed by Vito Acconci on UBUWEB
• An interview with Acconci by designboom.