Vito Acconci Movies

A documentation of a live performance at New York University, Pryings is a graphic exploration of the physical and psychological dynamics of...

"A view of a brick wall: the artist enters and walks from one side to the other, back and forth, row after row." - Electronic Arts Intermix

A documentation of one of Acconci's most notorious performances, Claim Excerpts is a highly confrontational work, an exercise in self-induced,...

A three-part video epic in which avant-garde artist Vito Acconci explores the relationship between the self and national mythology. Through multiple...

The screen is empty: the artist stands off-screen — he breathes in and out, his stomach moving into and out of the frame.

“In this legendary sculpture/performance Acconci lay beneath a ramp built in the Sonnabend Gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he...

A ten minute super-8mm work from 1970 by Vito Acconci.

Acconci lies naked on a gurney-like table, rocking back and forth as a tape-loop of his voice describes his anxieties about exposing his body and his...

Torn over the pressure to perform for his audience, Acconci fantasizes about "a dancing bear" who takes his place, performing in the spotlight, doing...

Acconci's open mouth is framed by the camera in an extreme close-up, bringing the viewer uncomfortably close. A desperate sense of strained urgency...

A super-8mm short from Vito Acconci

Contacts is one of a series of tapes in which Acconci creates a controlled performance situation to explore the limits of a private space. Applying...

A woman kisses Acconci's body, covering him in red lipstick traces. Acconci then rubs his body against another man (Dennis Oppenheim), transferring...

Acconci's body-based performances are often willfully provocative in their testing of physical limits and controlled actions. Here, as the camera...

In this feature-length silent film, Acconci uses hand-written title cards to present an "interior monologue" about speaking, language, and silence....

"Acconci spars with his close-up image in a mirror. He then breaks the mirror, destroying his image." - Electronic Arts Intermix

Face-Off is an ironic collusion of private and public, of exposure and masking, a tense ritual wherein Acconci divulges and then censors his...

"You’re Going to Die!" is a children’s story exploring one simple idea ad nauseum bonum. This video treatment by Dennis Palazzolo adapts...

"In this now infamous tape, exemplary of his early transgressive performance style, Acconci sits and relates a masturbatory fantasy about a girl...

In Conversions II, the second in a trilogy of films interrogating the rigidity of gender binarism, the artist attempts to feminize his unquestionably...