Acconci, Vito, 1940-2017.

Public space in a private time / Vito Acconci.

Wien : Galerie Hubert Winter ; Docking, Norfolk, England : Coracle, 1992.

20 pages ; 18 cm

Carpe Diem ; 1

Public space is an old habit. The words public space are deceptive; when I hear the words, when I say the words, I'm forced to have an image of a physical place I can point to and be in. I should be thinking only of a condition; but, instead, I imagine an architectural type, and I think of a piazza, or a town square, or a city commons. Public space, I assume, without thinking about it, is a place where the public gathers. The public gathers in two kinds of spaces. The first is a space that is public, a place where the public gathers because it has a right to the place; the second is a space that is made public, a place where the public gathers precisely because it doesn't have the right--a place made public by force.3In the space that is public, the public whose space this is has agreed to be a public; these are people "in the form of the city," they are public when they act "in the name of the city." They "own" the city only in quotes. The establishment of certain space in the city as "public" is a reminder, a warning, that the rest of the city isn't public. New York doesn't belong to us, and neither does Paris, and neither does Des Moines. Setting up a public space means setting aside a public space. Public space is a place in the middle of the city but isolated from the city. Public space is the piazza, an open space separated from the closure of alleys and dead ends; public space is the piazza, a space in the light, away from the plots and conspiracies in dark smokey rooms. Vito Acconci's latest show, entitled "Public Places," was held in 1988 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He is currently at work on a park in Detroit, a pedestrian mall in Baltimore, and a housing project in Regensburg, Germany.--Critical Inquiry 16 (4) (1990).

Acconci, Vito, 1940-2017.
Artists' books United States.
Public spaces.
Livres d'artistes États-Unis.
Espaces publics.
Artists' books
United States

artists' books (books)
Case bindings.
Numbered limited editions.
treatises.
Artists' books
Livres d'artistes.

Galerie Hubert Winter.
Carpe Diem ; 1.

Location: Library main 222404
Call No.: N44.A172.A35 1992
Status: Available