Shadow Fighter

 Shadow Fighter

By: Brandon Rios

In the three-part exercise, Three Relationship Studies (1970), Acconci explores the dynamics of his  interactions with others. Each study involves a form of mirroring. This is a Super 8 movie. A gray image. We see a man gesturing, like a boxer. He struggles aggressively with the projected, negative image of a shadow: his own. He fights with himself as if it were another and tries to mimic that other. This section entitled "Shadow Play" (which can be seen in the collections of the Center Georges Pompidou) is particularly effective from this point of view since it places the individual directly in front of himself, in front of his liner (a other) through a shadow, his own.

What are these other studies that Acconci have composed?

According to Cristina Bello, in the late 1960s Acconci abandoned poetry  to work with the body and its relationship with space. He did, however, retain a commitment to language. “Influenced by the concepts proposed by the Judson Dance Theater and the Structuralist experimental cinema in the Anthology Film Archives, Acconci shifted his interest towards performance, Super 8, video, sound and installation, executed within the gallery or museum space” (Bello). The short films he was going to shoot were filled with conceptual concerns. This is a current that is actively developing in the United States at this time. The galleries that he will visit to show this work will constitute a strong base for the knowledge that we will have of his activities and the dissemination of his works. The activities shown in the three studies, Manipulations, Imitations, and Shadow Play,  reveal his interest in the body as space. In this specific case, he zeroed in on the relationship of his body with the other, his manipulation of it, and the manner in which the shadow cast by his body figures out how to overwhelm the space outside it. The connection between oneself and its picture is the rule that has driven numerous history specialists, including Rosalind Krauss, to discuss the stylishness of narcissism in the beginnings of the video, in which Acconci has a focal job.













Citation

Bello, Cristina Cámara. “Three Relationship Studies (Manipulations, Imitations, Shadow Play).” Vito Acconci, www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/three-relationship-studies-manipulations-imitations-shadow-play. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maya Lin: More Than Just a Monument

Image
  Maya Lin, Ecliptic, 2001, Concret  Maya Lin: More Than Just a Monument April 19, 2021, Anissa Quankep      Maya Lin participated in an Art21 documentary giving us a closer look into her work. Art21 allowed us to be part of the artistic process of Eliptical, an urban park in Grand Rapids Michigan. Eliptical was a made in 2 001 and is a refurbished ice rink made from the park. Lin is best known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a project that she designed in her early twenties. Since then she has fallen into the category of a "monument artist," a label she dislikes. During her Art21 interview Identity , Lin states ". . .had I not done the Vietnam memorial. . .I would be called an artist five years sooner. But because I had done the Vietnam Memorial, it was like "Oh you make monuments," or whatever that means." Lin is a contemporary artist who practices art through architecture, making it harder for galleries and museums to showcase her work. Robert...
Read more

Leonard Suryajaya, A Refreshing Take on Sophistication

Image
Wrestling trauma through “Dream Vessels,” aka photographs.   by Anna Silverstein April 1, 2021 Virtual Reality (2017) Leonard Suryajaya is an artist who lacks concern for performative elitism, winning me over with his authenticity during a live Zoom talk he led at CSUF. Due to the level of sophistication of his work, I was surprised by his approachability and down-to-earth demeanor. Although Suryajaya considers himself a photographer, his process could be seen as theatrical performance. Suryajaya’s theatre background not only gives him set design skills, allowing him to create amazing installations and photographs, but also, his Zoom presentation was inadvertently a captivating and moving performance of its own. The talk was marked with refreshing candor, and relatable trauma “over-sharing”.   The juxtaposition of Suryajaya’s incriminating honesty with the hyper sophistication of his work is one of the artist’s many dichotomies. As an eternal outsider on a quest to fit in, th...
Read more

Margaret Kilgallen: From Graffiti to Museums

Image
Margaret Kilgallen by  Ben Kokkelenberg on May 13   Untitled ( around 2000). Courtesy the Estate of Margaret Kilgallen and Ratio 3. San Francisco Margaret Kilgallen, born on October 28, 1967 in Washington D.C, grew up in the San Francisco area. She was immersed in bluegrass music, and learned to play the banjo. This musical  led her to draw the sounds she heard without knowing what she was drawing. Her drawings in the beginning focused on heroines and  on empowering women. As her artwork progressed, she chose the medium of graffiti to display her art for the world. Art21’s documentary “Place” created in 2001, shows an interview with Kilgallen in which she talks about her inspirations and her artwork. She explains why she enjoys displaying her art through graffiti. Kilgallen says, “the viewer looks at graffiti and sees garbage and I always wonder why they don’t look at billboards, [especially around San Francisco, there’s millions everywhere] isn’t that garbage, that’...
Read more