Vito Acconci

Vito Acconci is among the key late 20th-century artists who expanded the boundaries of art beyond painting and sculpture, bringing art out of the gallery or museum into shared public spaces.

Initally a poet, Acconci became involved with the New York conceptual art scene in the late 1960s.

His writing began to take the form of instructions or descriptions for activities which the artist would then perform.

He would, for example, wander down a street, choose people at random and follow them ("Following Piece" 1969); or perform basic activities repetitively, such as attempting to catch a ball while blindfolded ("Adaption Study - Blindfolded Catching", 1970).

These activities were at first documented by texts and photographs but as soon as video became available Acconci pioneered its use in the art medium.

In 1972 he produced the most famous performance installation, "Seedbed".

In Manhattan's Sonnabend Gallergy, Acconci built a low ramp, subtly raising the wooded floor.

Concealed underneath it, Acconci stimulated himself with sexual fantasies about viewers walking in the empty gallery above, speaking his fantasies into a microphone linked to loud speakers. Spectators unexpectedly found themselves implicated in an intimate power relationship between the artist and the viewer.

From 1974 Acconci no longer placed his own body at the centre of his work.

He continued investigating social themes with installations in which viewers could create private spaces in the midst of public areas.

Since the mid 1980s his work has turned towards experimental architectural projects.

In 1988 he set up the architectural practice Acconci Studio.

Some of Acconci Studio's projects include "Flying Doors by Ticket Pavilion", "Terminal B/C", "Philadelphia Airport (1998) and "Screens for a Walkway, Shibuya Station, Tokyo" (2000).

Like Dan Graham, Acconci is a key artist of the 1960s generation, equally of interest to the art and architecture worlds.

He participated in the landmark exhibitions "Information" at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970), Documenta in 1972 and 1982 and the 1976 Venice Biennale.

His retrospectives include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1981) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1983).

Acconci Studio has public commissions around the world and was featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2001.