ROBERT MORRRIS, VITO ACCONCI & PERFORMANCE ART

Robert Morris the artist has died. I go in and out of the art world depending on who’s exhibiting and what I am writing and editing. I never met Morris.I knew Don Judd through John Wesley as well as other leaders of performance art and minimalism. I worked with the late Hannah Wilke and also especially Colette.
 
I met the late Vito Acconci mid-performance at Documenta in Kassel in 1972. He had blindfolded himself and was walking around an otherwise empty room following instructions pre-recorded on his reel-to-reel tape recorder. We were alone. It was fascinating. Then four or five loud dumb drunk German tourists wandered in and fell to laughing at Vito. After three or four minutes one of them thought it would be hilarious to unplug Vito’s tape. He had been well aware of their unpleasant presence. Vito then physically attacked the drunkest. Their smirks were replaced with alarm, and they vanished. Vito and I then spent the next few days meeting intermittently and talking. Too bad I didn’t record our conversations. Back in New York he did a piece for Unmuzzled OX. Vito’s death like the deaths of Morris and Judd and Wilke seem impossible.