Vito Acconci
Down/Up
Down/Up, 1969
Cardboard, gelatin-silver prints, texts, 76.2 x 101.6 cm
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur, acquisition made possible by the "Jedermann Collection" donors' group
2006-011-001
© Vito Acconci
1940 (New York, US) – 2017 (New York, US)
The US American conceptual artist Vito Acconci produced an extensive body of work across a range of different media involving performance, media art, installation and sculpture. In the 1960s and 1970s, Acconci took a particular interest in the human body and the dynamic tension between looking and desiring in public and private spaces. For Step Piece, he devised a set up with the feel of a scientific experiment, repeatedly getting up on a stool and then getting down again. He took photographs of this so that he could dissect the movement visually, breaking it down into a series of sub-steps. In Following Piece, he turned pedestrians into unwitting participants in his work by following them on the street until they went into a space that the artist could not enter. Photography played a crucial role as a medium of documentation in the performance art of the 1960s and 1970s. Acconci also took photos to preserve his performances beyond the moment they were enacted; he would often add handwritten notes and sketches to these pictures, which he subsequently combined to create series of images.