After reading Art as PErformative Enactment, I started looking for a performance piece that I had never seen before. As Lynn Herchann says, in performance art, "the viewer has no choice but to construct meanings on his or her own out of the interactions in consciousness between different elements; there are no given meaning." Rather than try and decipher what the artists was trying to convey, I watched Centers, by Vito Acconci, one of his works that I haven't yet seen. In this piece, he stands and points to the camera for 25 minutes. My interpretation of this piece was that Acconci was forcing the viewer to look within themselves and address all the things that would warrant someone sternly pointing a finger at them. What I didn't realize however, was that Acconci was pointing at himself in a mirror the whole time and that the image is turned around as him pointing at us. This type of realization is what I love about performance art. I could get something completely different from the piece than the person next to me, however, it would still be valid. And it the end, when I learn the true intention of the artist, it just forces me to look at a different way which is also exciting!
Vito Acconci's Centers
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