Vito Acconci Movies

"Visions of a Disappearance is a newly restored performance tape that was recorded in Naples, Italy, in 1973. Crouched in a corner, hemmed in by the...

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

"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...

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

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...

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

"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

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

Acconci's face is seen in close-up. His eyes trace, in real time, the movement of the hands of an off-screen clock.

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

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

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

The final installment of the Conversions trilogy.

In these three exercises, Acconci plays with trans-gender illusions, manipulating and altering his own body parts to suggest sexual transformations.

A super-8mm work documenting Acconci's audio installation piece in the Sonnabend gallery in 1972 of the same name.

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...

In Theme Song, Acconci uses video as close-up to establish a perversely intimate relation with the viewer, creating a personal space in which to talk...

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

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

A super-8mm short from Vito Acconci