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PHOTOGRAPHS
Acconci, Vito
U.S. (1940 - 2017)
Blinking Piece
1969
Gelatin silver prints and ink on index cards
3 3/8 x 3 3/8 in. (8.6 x 8.6 cm) image size; 3 7/8 x 5 7/8 in. (9.8 x 14.9 cm) sheet size; 25 1/16 x 59 1/2 in. (63.7 x 151.1 cm) board size; 25 3/4 x 60 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. (65.4 x 153.0 x 3.8 cm) frame size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company
FA 97.3 A
Keywords: Performance art; Cityscape; Transportation (car); Text; Architecture (building)

Vito Acconci is a New York Conceptual artist whose work ranges widely -- from photography to video to performance, and, more recently, to sculpture. In the 1960s, he gravitated to Conceptual art (work organized around conveying ideas rather than creating objects), defining his work through the photographic and cinematic medium of video. His performance work often used photography as an essential element. Beyond simply documenting a project or acting as the future embodiment of it, he explored photography for its own inherent possibilities. For this piece, Acconci walked down a New York city street and took a photograph every time he blinked, thus using the camera to "see" what was missing. -- Label copy for After Art: Rethinking 150 Years of Photography, December 4, 1994 to March 26, 1995.


In his early, influential work from the late 1960s and 1970s, the poet turned self-described art-doer, and later, architect, Vito Acconci used his body as material in action-based works such as the one here. For this activity, Acconci, who was part of a generation of artists that challenged the object-based definition of art through performance and concept-driven work, established simple parameters that included taking a photograph each time he blinked.

The rhythm of Acconci’s body determined the resulting sequence of photographs, which capture what his own eye missed in these moments as he walked down Greenwich Street in New York City-the camera functioning as a surrogate eye.

Label copy for The Time. The Place. Contemporary Art from the Collection, November 4, 2017 to March 25, 2018.
Copyright credit: Courtesy of Acconci Studio

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