Vito Acconci was born in the United States.           Baja California Circle Richard Long	Printer-friendly PDF (1.2mb) Who is the artist? Vito Acconci What is the name of the artwork? Garden Installation (Displaced Person) What materials were used? Concrete, stones, dirt, and grass Where is the artist from? United States When was the artwork made? 1987 Vito Acconci was born in 1940 in the Bronx, New York. He began his career as a poet, but in the 1960s, he also began to work with other forms of art. In the 1960s, Acconci made art by video taping scenes he created. He likes to focus on how people relate to the space they are in, and he also likes his viewers to participate in his art. Sometimes the viewers participate by just watching him perform, or sometimes they participate by touching the art. In Garden Installation (Displaced Person), viewers can touch and walk through the piece of art. Acconci traced the outline of a person laying down on the ground in the Garden Gallery at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. If you are walking through the Garden, you will see that on the left side a human shape is cut out of the grassy bank. One of the arms and legs extends onto the pathway, allowing us to walk through the space. On the other side of the path, there is grass and dirt inside another outline of the same human shape. Acconci’s goal in creating this piece of art is to make the viewer think about the space around them. Acconci uses positive and negative space in this piece. Can you tell which part is the positive, and which part is the negative space? Which part of this artwork uses negative space? Which part uses positive space? What are some examples of positive and negative space in everyday life? Do you think that the negative space in this piece of art balances the positive space in the artwork? Why would the artist want the two spaces to balance each other? Negative space – The space that represents an area where there are no solid objects. Positive space – The space that represents a solid object.	Vito Acconci United States, born 1940 Garden Installation (Displaced Person) Concrete, stones, dirt and grass, 1987 Courtesy of the artist EL 1987.2 © Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego   1939 World War II begins 1940 Vito Acconci is born in the United States 1952 Mr. Potato Head is created by Playskool 1964 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin 1978 Sony invents the Walkman 1987 Acconci makes Garden Installation (Displaced Person) 1993 World Wide Web (www) invented for the Internet
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