2 photographs, gelatin silver print, on paper and 10 works on paper, ink
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/vito-acconci-623" aria-label="More by Vito Acconci" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Vito Acconci</a>
Room Situation
Presented by Barbara Gladstone 2001
abstraction
Acconci, Vito
actions: postures and motions
adults
art gallery
box
chair
classification
contrast
crouching
emotions, concepts and ideas
existence
formal qualities
furnishings
interiors
man
named individuals
non-representational
objects
people
photographic
portraits
public and municipal
self-portraits
text
universal concepts
vessels and containers
<p><i>Room Situation</i> documents a performance entitled Room Piece that was staged over three weekends in January 1970. Each weekend, Acconci moved furniture and objects from his New York apartment to a gallery eighty blocks uptown. If he needed any of these items, he would return to the gallery to borrow them, and take them back when he had finished using them. The distinction between the artist''s home and his gallery, and between his private and public activities, became increasingly blurred.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper print 2 photographs gelatin silver 10 works ink
15 July 2004 – 5 June 2005
2005-06-05
15 July 2004 – 17 October 2004
2004-10-17
2004-07-15
Musée des Beaux-Arts (Nantes, France)
18 November 2004 – 20 February 2005
2005-02-20
2004-11-18
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
12 April 2005 – 5 June 2005
2005-06-05
2005-04-12
Centro de Atlántico de Arte Moderno (Las Palmas, Spain)
2004-07-15
Vito Acconci
Loan-out
17 April 2006 – 12 March 2007
2007-03-12
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2006-04-17
Image / Text
Collection based display
11 January 2008 – 22 February 2009
2009-02-22
11 January 2008
2008-01-11
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2008-01-11
Image/Text: Rules and Systems
Collection based display
14 May 2010 – 30 August 2010
2010-08-30
14 May 2010 – 30 August 2010
2010-08-30
2010-05-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-05-14
CAS 2
Collection based display
Room Situation
support, secondary: 940 × 700 mm
frame: 963 × 723 × 32 mm
Presented by Barbara Gladstone 2001
<p>The two panels that compose <i>Room Situation</i>, 1970, document an activity of the same year entitled <i>Room Piece</i>, which had been performed by the artist over three January weekends. On each weekend the artist would take the movable contents of a section of his downtown New York apartment to the Gain Ground Gallery, which was eighty blocks away, then return to the gallery to fetch any items he needed, only to take them back again when he had finished using them. On the first weekend (10-11 January 1970), the items taken to Gain Ground were those from Acconci's kitchen, on the second (17-18 January) those from his living room, bedroom and bathroom, while on the third (24-25 January) it was the turn of articles from his workroom. As critic Kate Linker has written, 'personal property was thereby conveyed to a publicly visible arena, defined as a kind of extended apartment, employing the city transportation system for access.' (Kate Linker, <i>Vito Acconci</i>, New York 1994, p.20.)

</p><p>The first, smaller, panel is composed of two black and white <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photographs</span></a> on <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> - which depict objects from the artist's kitchen (including a table and two chairs, a broom and several full cardboard boxes) and the artist removing a jar of coffee from a box respectively - and a typewritten text on ledger paper which explains the workings of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/performance-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Performance art'"><span>performance</span></a> and how the artist could continue his daily activities in his apartment: 'whenever I need something stored at Gain Ground, I will go there to pick it up and bring it back home; when I finish with it, it is returned to the gallery'.

</p><p>Nine ledger papers are assembled onto the second panel in three rows of three pages each. Mostly hand-written in fibre-tipped pen under typewritten headings, they document the daily comings and goings of the artist, which items he borrowed and for how long. The entries describe items needed, timings, methods of transport and routes taken. A typical entry describes how on 17 January the artist, needing blankets and a pillow, left his apartment at 12:20 and reached the gallery (partly on foot, partly by subway) at 1:05 in the morning. He picked up the items and returned to his apartment by the same means, arriving there at 1:43. The following morning he went back to the gallery by car at 8:30, getting there and returning the items at 8:55.

</p><p>An important <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/conceptual-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Conceptual art'"><span>conceptual</span></a> artist, Vito Acconci explores the relationship between the human body and self and social and psychological conditions through his performances (which he called 'activities') and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/installation-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Installation'"><span>installations</span></a>. The two-part <i>Room Situation</i> features the classic conceptualist combination of photograph, descriptive text and quasi-scientific listing and diagram. <i>Room Situation</i> blurs the distinction between home and gallery, between the private and public activities of the artist. As in all of Acconci's early works, the actual physical manifestation of the work of art is secondary to the artist's documented performative action. <i>Room Situation</i> is also an early example of institutional critique, questioning the detaching sanctity of the gallery space, the nature of the art object and the social and geographical separation of the art world.

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b><i>Vito Acconci</i>, exhibition catalogue, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1978, reproduced in part p.11<br/>Kate Linker, <i>Vito Acconci</i>, Rizzoli, New York 1994, reproduced in part p.21

</p><p>Giorgia Bottinelli<br/>February 2002<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<i>Room Situation</i> documents a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/performance-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Performance art'"><span>performance</span></a> entitled Room Piece that was staged over three weekends in January 1970. Each weekend, Acconci moved furniture and objects from his New York apartment to a gallery eighty blocks uptown. If he needed any of these items, he would return to the gallery to borrow them, and take them back when he had finished using them. The distinction between the artist''s home and his gallery, and between his private and public activities, became increasingly blurred.

Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
abstraction Acconci, Vito actions: postures and motions adults art gallery box chair classification contrast crouching emotions, concepts and ideas existence formal qualities furnishings interiors man named individuals non-representational objects people photographic portraits public and municipal self-portraits text universal concepts vessels and containers