Global contemporary art events and news observed from New York City. Suggestion? Email us.
NEWS

Jail for Spanish Forger Who Attempted Sale of 15 Fake Works

February 21st, 2023

A Spanish court has sentenced an art collector to prison for selling a set of fake works, including a series of forged works attributed to Edvard Munch and Roy Lichtenstein.
Read More »

The Guardian Interviews Former Subjects of Painter Alice Neel

February 21st, 2023

The Guardian has a piece this week on what it was like to be painted by Alice Neel. “One day Alice said she wanted to paint me and to bring some things I could wear, so I packed a little suitcase and had various costumes,” says artist and sex activist Annie Sprinkle. “I’d just had my labia pierced and I was showing it off, and she really wanted to see that. She picked a leather outfit and I put a feather in my hair.”
Read More »

Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation Behind $4.5 Million Robert Colescott Buy

February 21st, 2023

Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation is apparently behind the $4.5 million purchase of a Robert Colescott at Bonhams this month. “This work in particular presents a hopeful and powerful message, and we are pleased that it resonated so strongly with individuals and institutions alike,” says Ralph Taylor, Bonhams’s global head for postwar and contemporary art.
Read More »

REFERENCE LIBRARY

Vito Acconci

Vito Acconci
Vito Acconci image via The Brooklyn Rail

b. 1940
Lives and works in:

Brooklyn, New York

Represented by:

Acconci Studio, Brooklyn, NY

Education includes:

College of the Holy Cross BA, Worcester, MA

University of Iowa MFA, Iowa City

Acconci, a New York born and based artist, began his career in the mid-60s as a poet and co-editor (with poet and author Bernadette Mayer) of the journal 0 to 9. The journal published works by important contemporaneous artists and writers such as Robert Barry, Dan Graham, Sol Lewitt, Yvonne Rainer, and Robert Smithson.By the late 60s Acconci drifted from writing and, influenced by the readings he participated in, started exploring performance-based work, video, film, and photography. Much of this work was highly conceptual and focused on the artist’s body within space (Following, an early piece, consisted of the artist being led around New York City by strangers). Another prominent feature of this work was the element of total physicality as pronounced through his engagement with his own body, which at times was quite grotesque and bordered on violent. Perhaps his most notorious piece, Seedbed (1971), consisted of Acconci lying under a wooden ramp in Sonnabend Gallery, masturbating, while his concurrent fantasies were being broadcast through speakers in the gallery. This piece, which employed performance, language, and a direct relationship between the viewer and the artist, would establish the vein in which Acconci worked for years to come.
crash by vito acconci

Crash by Vito Acconci, image via Wikipedia

By the 1980s, Acconci explored more proto-architectural constructions, moving out of the traditional gallery space into more open, dialogical, public space. In 1988 he formed Acconci Studio, an architecture and landscaping firm, with a group of other architects. Acconci Studio, based in Brooklyn, continues to design public buildings.

City of Words, Lithograph by Vito Acconci

City of Words, Lithograph by Vito Acconci, image via Wikipedia

Vito Acconci- Homepage

Wikipedia Entry

Books About Vito Acconci:
More info about the artist coming soon.

Comments: info@artobserved.com