Vito Acconci’s daring conceptual practice spanned performance, sculpture, video, furniture and architecture. Described as having “made a medium out of menace” (The New Yorker), Acconci explored the body as subject, structure, and vehicle, challenging the limits of social acceptability through provocation.
Acconci came to the Workshop in 1986, bringing his fascination with the human form with him. Though never completed, Acconci’s concept for a fleshy garment draped with dimensional ivy invites discovery: lift a leaf to get a peek at nipples underneath. In working with the FWM Studio team, Acconci experimented with different halftone prints of nipples and other printing techniques to create a marbled effect for the leaves. Ever playful in defying expectations, the artist advised for the nipples to be printed on pockets with a few of them sewn where one would not expect a pocket (or a nipple) to be located. As with much of the artist’s work, Leaf Shirt explores the possibilities of intimacy—and even eroticism—between the artist and strangers.
Though Acconci abandoned the project—supposedly when the alternative rock band Talking Heads introduced their own leaf shirt—the FWM Studio circled back to it in 2001, sewing a prototype based on the artist’s initial designs.
