Vito Acconci

I mean, it was like-

I think Vito Acconci won.

Vito was there.

I was his intern.

And so I've been thinking about this before the event last night.

So I've been thinking about this famous performance artist slash architect slash, you know, jack of all trades, Vito Acconci, who is a famous performance artist.

He passed away in 2017.

But in his later life, after he did really some very provocative work,

Who did not do some provocative art pieces in the 70s? So in 2002, January of 2002, mere months after 9-11, this gallerist named Max Protach and the Architecture Review put out a call for proposals for

for architects to talk about what could happen at the World Trade Center site.

And Vito Acconci had designed a building that he called Pre-Exploded, which was like a Swiss cheese building.

And looking at it, I've been thinking about it quite, I mean, really for 20 years, because It is fascinating, it's provocative, but it's irreverent, but it's not not reverent, I guess.

What he says, and he uses very specific examples to kind of really illustrate the point.

But he says that actually lots of that work, Vito Acconci is the artist he refers to, is really constituted mostly for a secondary audience as performance.

You know, maybe there are a few people in the room or maybe there is an original live audience.

But ultimately, what makes it performance and what makes us understand performance art through these, you know, these works that become really, uh, key works is black and white photography.

No metaphor, no ornament, no attempt to make the action sound more poetic than it was.

Aconchi followed people.

More precisely, he chose a stranger at random on the street and followed that person until they entered a private space or a place where he could no longer continue.

Sometimes the following lasted only a few minutes.

One person knows the piece is happening, the other does not.

But if we stay with the work a little longer, without excusing it, something more complicated begins to appear.

Aconchi was not following these people because of who they were.

He was not trying to uncover their secrets or produce a portrait of them.