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When Acconci was talking with Klaus Biesenbach, he stated that “Art to me was kind of fakery.” when he says this I believe that art started to become a performance to him. Even though he was portraying things that weren’t necessarily fake to him, he was performing the concepts for his pieces. He would take these very private, intimate thoughts and moments and publicly display them. By choosing to publicly display these actions and thoughts, the way he displays them changes. These perverted thoughts are now art and these are no longer intimate moments. They are still intimate moments it’s just that now these moments are being seen by countless people and so these are no longer personal moments to him. I believe that Acconci began to over exaggerate and when he is doing this he is referring to the fakery. This is not his real identity, this is a performance and to do that he must create a fake version of himself. Acconci would put on a show and you can see this in his drafts. He would think of these imaginary scenes or endings and this became his work.
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- Throughout the entire Vito Acconci exhibit, there is a visual understanding that he experimented with identity. In particular, he explored the most with feminity and masculinity. This is seen in many pieces, including his piece “Openings”. During this piece, Acconci painstakingly pulls out each hair around his navel and stomach. Here he is demonstrating how he as a male, is trying to look more feminine. By pulling out individual hairs he is trying to appear hairless, like a woman and no longer have the masculinity of a man. This experimentation is also seen in pieces where he tries to hide his penis in between his legs, to appear as though he is a woman. This is also seen again in another piece where he burns off the hairs around his nipples and breasts to appear as though he has female breasts. Another piece that he showed experimentation in identity is when he dressed his penis up as doll. Throughout the entire exhibit there does not seem to be as many masculinity pieces as there are experimental female pieces but one thing I did notice was the lack of identity. After viewing all of Acconci’s works, I could not identify one man. I felt as though he was just a lost soul, not sure who he was or where he stood. This was a very eerie feeling
- In Vito Acconci’s piece Seedbed, I believe that he was trying to accomplish as merge of private space and public space. Although I found this piece to be rather disturbing, I understand that his intent was not to disturb. I think that he wanted to show how something so private and intimate can be done during in a public space, during a public time. In Vito Acconci’s other piece, Following Piece, I believe that he is trying to show by following these strangers around that each stranger can become personal. By this I mean that if you follow someone around long enough you can see their private lives and see where they life and how they act. I believe in both of these pieces that Vito tries to blur the lines of public and private life by invading public space with private space. I see this because he takes such public spaces and then manipulates this public space into his own private one without anyone but himself know. I think that by him being the only person knowing about this manipulation that the space he is in is already private to him as well.
- In Vito’s exhibit, there is a strong presence of violence, sexuality, and the body. He builds this relationship between the three in a very interesting way. When I first walked through the gallery I was more frightened by the violence in sexuality and this really was unsettling to me. For example, the first time that I saw Prying, I got the chills. To see Vito try to pry open these closed eyes was unsettling and violent but I did not find it to be sexual. I saw this as more of a relationship between the body and violence. In this piece it appears to be more of a study of resistance and control. So it is not that Vito is trying to be violent, but he is more just experimenting with the body and the relationship it has with violence. In his piece Openings, he experiments with all three topics, violence, the body and sexuality, Here we seem him pulling out his entire stomach hair and this is so he can appear to be more feminine. Although, this act is rather violent and painful, so you seem his being violent with his own body to appear as a different gender. This is a very interesting group of things and this relationship reminds me of transgender transitions. I think of this because the violence that is exhibited is not to be cruel or mean but it is necessary in order to showcase the sexuality that is desired by this person.
