Vito Acconci

I like Richard Serra sculptures too but I wish they had a goddamn hot dog stand inside.

— Vito Acconci

It was an incredible way to grow up, because words that you're taught - these definite things - you realize they sort…

— Vito Acconci

Architecture is inherently a totalitarian activity. One thing we hate about it is that when you design a space, you're probably designing…

— Vito Acconci

[Photography was necessary to] make my place in the art-world: in order to do this, I had to make a picture, since…

— Vito Acconci

Especially once those poetry events began, because, yeah, the stuff was still on the page, but the page was starting to spill…

— Vito Acconci

I became much more interested in plot when I really didn't consider myself a writer anymore. When I was in an art…

— Vito Acconci

The kind of influence you want is a much deeper influence. It's like empowerment. Things are like this, but what if they…

— Vito Acconci

If something's public then it seems like the important thing is the person in that public. And the notion of rhetoric. I…

— Vito Acconci

Everybody uses labels: they give you a handle on things - an over-simplified handle, sure, but without labels, without ads, without words,…

— Vito Acconci

My first pieces, in an art context, were ways to get myself off the page and into real space. These photographic pieces…

— Vito Acconci

I came from the time of so-called New Criticism - the poem in itself, the writing in itself - but around that…

— Vito Acconci

There's a legal term for a problem in public space: something that might draw people to an area-say, across train tracks-where they…

— Vito Acconci

Public space can be a lot better with some private space to contradict it and vice versa. It keeps the system alive.…

— Vito Acconci

As a kid I learned notions of art and notions of not having any money.

— Vito Acconci

Maybe I had to stop photographing so that I could learn to touch.

— Vito Acconci

I always thought, I can't waste time, I have to do work. I also thought that I was slower than other people,…

— Vito Acconci

Yeah, it's not that I wanted to do a painting, I wanted to do writing like that. What jolted me about Jasper…

— Vito Acconci

Why was I in a basement saying, "I'm alone here," wielding a lead pipe and crowbars? It was like I was doing…

— Vito Acconci

I wish we could make buildings that could constantly explode and come back in different ways. The idea of a changing environment…

— Vito Acconci

I'm using my own person in pieces, but I'm trying to turn my person into a nonperson in the sense of a…

— Vito Acconci

I can pick out people in this city to follow. I can be in a show at the Museum of Modern Art,…

— Vito Acconci

I didn't want to admit that I was a performer. A performer meant spotlights - a performer had connotations of theater. I…

— Vito Acconci

I wanted to be involved with the making of some kind of parallel world. I thought, there's no reason to go to…

— Vito Acconci

It was very definitely architectural. I was using the words on the page as some kind of equivalent of a physical model.…

— Vito Acconci

In a time when everybody is talking about finding oneself, how do you find yourself? I wanted to do it as literally…

— Vito Acconci