JP McMahon: 'The Eye, the Mind, and the Disappearance of the Body: Vito Acconci, 1969-1973'
This paper examines the performance/conceptual work of Vito Acconci produced between the years 1969 and 1973, and questions the relationship of the artist's performances to specific notions of the physical and material body. Though Acconci’s performances were made on, with and in the body, the resulting art was for the beholder always one for the eye or the mind rather than the body; that is to say, it affected the beholder perceptually and conceptually rather than physically. While this separation of the eye, the mind, and the body may seem somewhat reductive, it is deeply pertinent for an art historical examination of the formal and physical effects of Acconci's work on the beholder. This paper will also align Michael Fried's notion of absorption and theatricality with the art of Acconci, examining the latter in relation to Fried’s conception of the eye, the mind, and the body, which in turn were crucial to his understanding of modernism both critically and historically.
