Vito Acconci

Unlike the artists we've researched, Vito works mainly in landscaping, architecture, and installations. He was an immigrant who started working as a poet. He later became a video artist and a performance artist using his body as the subjeect of his photographs and films. Most recently, Vito takes over public spaces and makes them into his works of art. He invites viewers in by activiating machinery around them. Some of his works of art involve pornographic subjects being shouted over a loud speaker to passersby. I won't talk about those pieces... Vito also spent time teaching in many colleges around the country.

I find it hard to respect the work of a man who lays under a bridge, masturbating, and shouting out who pleasures him to that very person as they pass by. His sculptures are very interesting and well-crafted and I think his work is public spaces is brilliant. I love what he does when he takes over a public space without telling anyone he's going to do so and he makes the space his work of art by covering it in a material, etc. I try hard to overlook the masturbating piece, but it's hard to ignore that fact and I think that makes me look at his other pieces with a different, frustrated angle.