Vito Acconci
WALL RELIEF, 1983
Painted wood, mirror
16' x 26' x 4 1⁄2’

 
 

 

A set of wall additions, attached to and placed in front of an existent wall, that are in the shape of images and that can be walked on and walked through: a kind of painting that can be walked into.

The walls vary in height, their highest point at 16 feet (the height of the room the piece was designed for); the length of each wall is 27 feet (similar to the existent wall, and allowing 2 feet of passage at each end). Each wall is colored a single color, in gradations at 4-foot intervals.

Flush against the existent wall is a flat plane in the shape of a rearing horse (head, neck, and mane), its color ranging from dark gray at the left to light gray at the right. In front of the horse, and flush against it, is a wall -- or, more precisely, a wall-unit, about 2 feet deep -- in the shape of a dog (haunches, head, neck, and back), its color ranging from light brown at the left to dark brown at the right -- the horse appears, possibly, as the shadow of the dog. In front of the dog, and flush against it, is a wall-unit, 2 feet deep, in the shape of a reclining female body (breasts, stomach, abdomen, legs), its color ranging from dark pink at the left to light pink at the right -- the dog appears propped over the female, its tongue out and directed toward her breasts.

A doorway is cut out of the first wall-unit: at the right of the female wall, a doorway in the shape of a mouse, leaning over and facing up toward the groin. The inside edge of the doorway is lined with Plexiglas; the doorway is 2 feet deep, stopped by the back wall of the front wall-unit the mouse shape is more of a niche than a doorway.

At the right edge of the wall unit, up the female's calves, is a vertical billboard, like a sign up the side of a building: on a ground of blue sky and white clouds, bulging free-form alphabet letters, ranging from gray at the top through brown in the middle to pink at the bottom, read: B-U-R-N B-A-B-Y.

The interior of each wall-unit is colored like the outside. Next to the legs of the female-wall, a stairway leads up the back of the dog-wall, to a door behind the dog's head, under the ears. Halfway up the stairs, a curved doorway allows passage from the dog's back to the woman's thighs, where a short stairway descends to a platform across the stomach and on to a second door, within the breasts. At the front of the dog, a ramp leads up the haunches and on to a third door, in the belly.

Each door is like a Dutch door, with the bottom permanently closed. Opening the door forms a seating area, a chair scooped out of the interior of the wall unit. The door is hinged on a spring, so that it has to be held open by a person sitting in the chair: the inside of each door holds a mirrored image of a baby, in fetal position.


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