“An artist fights to retain the integrity of a work so that it remains a strong, clear vision. Art is and should be the act of an individual willing to say something new, something not quite familiar.”
Maya Lin Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982 National Mall, Washington D.C.
Sponsor: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Architect of Record: Cooper-Lecky Partnership Landscape Architect: Henry Arnold Photography: Terry Adams, Mark Segal, Victoria Sambunaris, Wendy Watriss
“What I never wanted in art – and why I probably didn’t belong in art – was that I never wanted viewers. I think the basic condition of art is the viewer: The viewer is here, the art is there. So the viewer is in a position of desire and frustration. There were those Do Not Touch signs in a museum that are saying that the art is more expensive than the people. But I wanted users and a habitat. I don’t know if I would have used those words then, but I wanted inhabitants, participants. I wanted an interaction.” — Vito Acconci
In January 1972, Acconci staged one of the decade’s most notorious performance art pieces at the Sonnabend Gallery in SoHo. Gallery visitors entered to find the space empty except for a low wood ramp. Hidden below the ramp, out of sight, Acconci masturbated, basing his fantasies on the movements of the visitors above him. He narrated these fantasies aloud, his voice projected through speakers into the gallery: “you’re on my left … you’re moving away but I’m pushing my body against you, into the corner … you’re bending your head down, over me … I’m pressing my eyes into your hair.” Seedbed was a seminal work that transformed the physical space of the gallery through minimal intervention to create an intimate connection between artist and audience, even as they remained invisible to one another.
Vito Acconci Seedbed 1972 Gelatin silver print 7 7/8 x 11 11/16 in.
“People, buying my stuff, can take it wherever they go and can rebuild it if they choose. If they keep it in their heads, that’s fine too. They don’t have to buy it to have it – they can just have it by knowing it.”
Lawrence Weiner PUSH AS IF & LEFT AS IS 2012 language and the materials referred to. Dimensions variable.
