Vito Acconci

Vito Hannibal Acconci ( born January 24, 1940) is a New York-based architect, public landscape designer, and installation artist.

Acconci began his career as a poet, editing Nine to Zero with Bernadette Mayer in the late 1960s. Acconci transformed himself into a performance and video artist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, 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.

One noted installation/performance piece from this period is Seedbed (January 1972). 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.

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.

More recently, the artist has worked with the Architecture Association and focused on architecture and landscape design that integrates public and private space.