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Vito Acconci: Design as Guerrilla ActivityVito Acconci sits in the stylish lobby of Auckland's Duxton Hotel. Although less than five minutes into the interview, the New York-based artist, known for his early radical performances and now for architectural projects, "liberates" this public space with a slouch.
As founder of the Acconci Studio (1988) in Brooklyn, New York, Acconci and his team of five architects have sought to fight the "totalitarian activity" involved in architectural design, rejecting the tendency to "design prisons for others and restricting what people do" in public spaces.
"I design for people who don't mind being a child again," says 64-year-old Acconci, his voice a guttural rasp.
While Acconci talks animatedly about his vision of people "taking a public space into their own hands", I imagine the pristine couch opposite us as a trampoline and want to jump on it - with my shoes on, of course.
In New Zealand for several days, Acconci first appeared as the keynote speaker at the one-day symposium, Public Art-Public Spaces, presented by the Wellington Sculpture Trust at Te Papa.
After his talk in Wellington, a city he referred to as "the New York City of New Zealand", Acconci flew to Auckland, "a kind of LA version", to launch St Paul St Gallery at AUT School of Art & Design.
The gallery is showing his work in a two-part video se
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September 8, 2004 | Viewed 24,396 time(s)
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