Vito Acconci Movies

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...

"Acconci caresses his torso, then crushes cockroaches into his stomach and rubs them into his skin." - Electronic Arts Intermix

The back of Acconci's head is seen in tight close-up. He hums to himself, first lyrically, then aggressively, violently. Suddenly he wheels around to...

"I walk in a circle around the camera: sometimes I'm on screen, sometimes I'm off, sometimes I change direction, leaving the screen on one side and...

A super-8mm short from Vito Acconci

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

"A long narrow corridor, leading to the camera—at one side, a window—sun streams in, splotches of light and dark, the corridor shimmers....

A super-8mm document (blown up to 16mm) of Acconci's performance of the same name in which he covered almost the entirety of the gallery space with a...

Vito Acconci chokes himself with a white cloth multiple times, his face turns red.

Using extreme close-ups and amplified sound to force the viewer into the space of his body, he experiments with his mouth as a container for saliva,...

A super-8mm short by Vito Acconci

The final installment of the Conversions trilogy.

This early performance tape is an example of what Acconci has termed his "quasi-ESP exercises," in which he explores mental concentration and...

"Super-8 camera held out before him as shield and surrogate, Acconci pushes through a landscape of dense reeds and overgrowth. Break-Through records...

In this performance based tape, Acconci uses his body to explore notions of opening and closure.

Acconci oftens performs controlled actions as if he had entered into a contractual agreement to test his physical limitations. In Grass/Mouth,...

The artist, sitting naked, takes water from a pot into his mouth and gargles; he spits it out onto his stomach and groin, transferring the water from...

The artist, covered in flour, tries to blow the flour off his skin.

Standing alone among beach dunes, Acconci begins to kick at the sand below him. Over the course of the film's ten minutes, this repeated action...

In 'Looking Around Piece', the performer stands before a fixed camera, which records his eye and head movements as he follows a moving object outside...