Vito Acconci Movies

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

Compilation film consisting of material from various artists who are involved in body art

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

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

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

In the late 1960s, Vito Acconci abandoned poetry in order to work with the body and its relationship with space, although he did retain a commitment...

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

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...

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...

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

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

A super-8mm short by Vito Acconci

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

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

"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...

Acconci imitates the sounds of war, gunfire and explosion; he thrusts his face, stomach or penis onto the screen. His childlike battle sounds are...

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

A three and a half minute Super-8mm piece on concentration/contemplation by Vito Acconci.

"In Scene Steal, Acconci, fully clothed, tries to shield a nude woman from the camera. In Container, he wraps his nude body around a cat as if to...

Super-8mm footage documenting the gallery set-up for Acconci's exhibition AIR-TIME at Sonnabend Gallery in 1973.