“Museums are managers of consciousness. They give us an
interpretation of history, of how to view the world and locate ourselves
in it. They are, if you want to put it in positive terms, great
educational institutions. If you want to put it in negative terms, they
are propaganda machines.”
“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.
Ideas have fathers One of the many destructive assumptions nowadays is that ideas have no fathers. But ideas are thought up by someone. For example, the concept of placing a sculpture on the ground without a plinth was one of Judd’s ideas; it is now very common and no one is aware of this. Another one of his ideas was the concept of the installation, the use of the whole space. Many artists devalue this idea. Once again there is no discussion at all and mediocre works are created. Art historians who are concerned with the past are at least still interested in chronology, those who work with contemporary art are not, and they see art as the subject for their own speculations.
Artist Donald Judd (1928 – 1994) held the 1993 Mondrian Lecture called ‘Some aspects of colour in general and red and black in particular’.
“One could consider that the choices made are like a paradox. It can be seen as a paradox for the painter to not choose the color of his canvas, but I want the charge-taker to decide, since ultimately he has to live with it.”— Claude Rutault
Claude Rutault was a French both minimalist and conceptual artist, best known for the original way of expression he created and named definition-method, which is basically a manual how to create his art piece.
Installation view of After the Masters: A Tribute to Claude Rutault (1941–2022) at Musée d’Orsay, 2023
