Written By: Grant VanLanduyt
It is not an easy task to describe or analyze performance art. An artist structures a physical or mental construction to be performed in a specific time and space before an audience. It is post-material and entirely ephemeral: there are no rehearsals, no repetition, nor a predictable ending.1 When a viewer is witness to a performance piece, they are no longer a passive observer of art as they become active participants-- the physical boundaries that separate artist and viewer are disregarded. Their presence and energy is crucial.2 In the performance-installation Seedbed, Vito Acconci considers this exchange between performer and audience by forcing an intimate, erotic relationship with them while laying under a ramp and masturbating. As indicated by writer Benjamin Greenman for the Journal of Scottish Society for Art History in 2011, the greater meaning of the piece is preceded by its action’s provocative reputation.3 With careful consideration of Acconci’s original 1972 performance and Marina Abramović’s re-performance in 2005, the interpreted meaning of Seedbed differs from intentional meaning due to the identity of the body performing. Seedbed was staged in a barren room of the Sonnabend Gallery in New York City in January of 1972. The only evidence of any spatial alteration could be seen by an installed ramp that emerged from the bare floors starting from the room’s center. It reached two feet at the highest point and met at the furthest wall. Other than a speaker resting in the back left corner of the room, the space remained completely minimal--nothing hung on the walls, nothing scattered across the false floor, and there
were no visual distractions.
1 Karen Rosenberg, “Provocateur: Marina Abramović,” New York Magazine, December 12, 2005. 2 Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alan Bois, and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “1974.” In Art Since 1990: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, 565. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. 3 Benjamin Greenman, “Seedbed and the Wedge of Chastity: The erotic play of interpretation,” Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, vol. 16 (2011-2012): 30.
For eight hours, the length of the gallery was open to the public, and twice a week during the month-long installation, the artist occupied the space under the ramp. Unseen by the viewers, he lay beneath the floorboards, masturbating and maneuvering between posts as visitors would walk, pace, and step along the ramp’s surface. Based on these unseen movements, the artist would construct intimate, sexual fantasies inspired by those who moved above him. As he was reliant only by the sounds of his guests, so were his viewers: his physical presence and masturbatory pleasures are only made known through the stationed loudspeaker as his moans and expressions of sexual ecstasy were projected throughout the room. In order to attempt to break down this now infamous performance piece, one must start with it’s origin. Art critic Matthew Collings released a six-episode series entitled This is Modern Art in 1999, wherein he guides the audience on a tour of contemporary art in efforts to gain a greater understanding of the present world of art. The second episode, called “Shock! Horror!”, features an interview with Acconci. Here, just as in an interview with Richard Prince for Bomb in 1991, Acconci recalls his foundational thoughts for Seedbed as they came from considerations with architecture: exploring ways in which his body could become part of the architecture of a room. With a ramp extending from the room’s bare, minimalist design, he took “something assumed as neutral and apart from person, and fill[ed] it with person,” and still remained invisible.4 Having determined the space for the piece, the actions that he would perform would become clear after researching synonyms to “floor”--one of which included “seedbed,” referring to a bed of soil that seeds are planted into for germination and development. Following by way of word association, Acconci figures that man can produce seed of his own by way of masturbation along with the help from his viewer.5
4 Richard Prince, “Vito Acconci: Interview with Richard Prince,” Bomb, vol. 36 (Summer 1991). 2 The metaphorical wall that separates the artist from viewer became limited only to the physical, bare floorboards of the wooden ramp, and a reciprocal system of actions dictated the structure of this piece. By moving about on this constructed ground, continuing their engagement and interaction, viewers took on a number of roles for the artist below them: his temporary lovers, unseen subjects of desire, and especially as his co-creator and collaborators. As he masturbates beneath them, he is fueled to create and imagine his sexual desires and imaginary encounters only with active participation, from his viewer.6 Without this auditory exchange of intimacy, sexuality, and sensual pleasure, what is being produced through the artist’s actions, semen or “seed”, cannot be spread along the floor, or “bed” of the gallery. Thus, the unsuspecting and unknowing attendants of the Sonnabend Gallery became contributors, reverting the production of art as a collaborative experience, “a joint result” between the artist and viewer.7 And by ejaculating, leaving behind trails of semen, Acconci, literally exhibits sperm on the bed of the gallery floor: a vital part of the equation that produces life. Acconci’s body is the tool for art making, and his ejaculate, the object and material, produces art and life. Seedbed is a symbolic representation of insemination and fertility.8
5 Matthew Collings, dir, This is Modern Art, Episode 2, “Shock! Horror!” Aired June 6 1999, on Channel 4, 36:21. 6 Vito Acconci, “Some Notes on Illegality in Art,” Art Journal 50, no. 3 (Fall 1991). 7 Ibid. 8 Benjamin Greenman, “Seedbed and the Wedge of Chastity: The erotic play of interpretation,” Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, vol. 16 (2011-2012): 30. 3
The participation of the viewer, however, was a double-sided coin. In this role, they were susceptible to an aesthetic vision of explicit sexual material from the artist, whether they liked it or not. The possibility of “disinterestedness” from the viewer as subject of sexual desire inherently harkens back to centuries old phenomena in Art History: the male gaze .9 A straight, white, male artist creates an art piece that most often features a nude woman to be looked at by straight, white male audiences. In this case, an auditory vision of sexual desire is portrayed by an unseen man to his unseen viewer about their bodies and assumed sexual organs in an act of physical intimacy: positioning Acconci into a role of dominance. As viewer step onto the ramp, and hear him utter phrases such as, “you’re moving away but I’m pushing my body against you, into the corner...” or “you’re pushing your cunt down on my mouth...” or “you’re ramming your cock down into my ass...” the viewer resides themself to his “powerfield” and Acconci “assumes the role of patriarchal homeowner who lays down the fundamental rules for his guests to follow.” He alone is in control of the sexual narrative, becoming a “hidden manipulator [that] lives out fantasies at unseen other’s expense.”10
For just over thirty-three years, Seedbed lived on as a memory from the first-hand accounts of participants, written notes, photographs, and very little other forms of documentation--performance cannot be preserved like a painting or a sculpture. Being granted permission directly from the artist, or their estate, legendary performance artist Marina Abramović staged a week-long series of performances. For seven consecutive nights, she recreated important, monumental works of her peers from the 1960s and 70s: the time that the art form had emerged. This series, entitled Seven Easy Pieces, premiered in November of 2005 at the Guggenheim in New York City.
9 Ibid. 10 Theresa Smalec, “Not What It Seems: The Politics of Re-Performing Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972),” Postmodern Culture : PMC.17, no. 1 (n.d.): 6-6. 4
Without any first-hand knowledge of these pieces, just as a contemporary audience would not, Abramović confided in archival documents--whatever had remained from the work’s original performance.11 By piecing everything together and interpreting these documents as one would a musical composition, what was performed in 2005 was the result of a perceived understanding of original work. Using her own body as medium, she aimed to pass knowledge from the past into the present and provide a different method of preservation.12 One of these re-performances included Vito Acconci’s Seedbed. For seven hours on the night of November the 10th, Abramović laid beneath a constructed floor, masturbating to the sounds of her unseen viewers while vocalizing sexual fantasies based on these movements. Breaking down the different components of this re-performance, it is easy to associate the undisrupted elements from her and Acconci’s original: time, action, and the reciprocal exchange between artist and viewer. However, from the account of Theresa Samlec, we become privy to the conscious and deliberate alterations made that then change the interpretation of Seedbed in comparison to Aconcci’s original performance in 1972.
In exploring the intricacies of performance art, one thing that cannot be ignored is the body performing. Dissected previously, the conceptual root of Seedbed stems from ways in which Acconci could become his own seedbed. As Amelia Jones puts it in Body Art/Performing the Subject, it is the masculinity of the artist that secures the intentional meaning: his phallus.13 Producing his own “seed” and spreading it along the “bed” of the gallery is only possible due to his anatomical male body. To perform the piece as it was conceived, the performer must have the same anatomical features, their own tool to produce the work’s object. The viewers who walk above him are anonymous, submissive contributors under his immediate control. His attempt to establish an intimate and erotic relationship with the viewer is only a means in which to achieve an orgasm on the mission of continual productivity.14
11 Karen Rosenberg, “Provocateur: Marina Abramović,” New York Magazine, December 12, 2005. 12 Theresa Smalec, “Not What It Seems: The Politics of Re-Performing Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972),” Postmodern Culture : PMC.17, no. 1 (n.d.): 6-6. 13 Amelia Jones, “The Body in Action: Vito Acconci and the ‘Coherent’ Male Artistic Body,” In Body Art/Performing the Subject, 107, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. 5
For Abramović, a woman without the anatomical phallus needed to produce seed, her approach to the situation requires a change of tactic. Though she was aware of her “output in terms of gender”, producing moisture and heat in which semen is dropped on, the intention behind her actions were not performing productivity--rather, it was to truly work for and strengthen the connection between her and her viewer.15 This is established through deviations from Acconci’s original by changes of space and the exchange of sounds between the two parties. The Guggenheim is a progressive series of spiraling platforms that gradually raises patrons closer to a domed skylight atop the structure. The installed structure mimics the design of the larger space it resides in. A curved white wall carves out an inner sanctum with six steps that lead the viewer up onto a round, false floor elevated from the actual floor. Though it retains the same dimensions as Acconci’s ramp, Abramović’s installation is not a ramp at all, in fact, the floor viewers stand on is completely level just above the masturbating artist. Staged in the museum’s rotunda, those visiting are able to view Abramović’s performance from a multitude of levels; the space becomes a panopticon of sorts. The further away the patrons are, the sounds of the artist fade, inviting and drawing them in to hear her words
and experience her fantasy.16 There is a sanctity to being above her, her words act in the same manner to draw her audience in: “close your eyes and keep them closed. Forget you’re at a museum. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be ashamed. Give to me all you desire.”17 Through insisting that their steps are not enough, Abramović invites her viewer to forget they are in a public space, but to invest in this private moment and experience with her.18 By continually masturbating to the sounds of her viewers on a level ground above her, Abramović successfully and effectively establishes this intimate relationship throughout the seven hour long performance.
14 Theresa Smalec, “Not What It Seems: The Politics of Re-Performing Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972),” Postmodern Culture : PMC.17, no. 1 (n.d.): 6-6. 15 Ibid. 6
Confined within the minimalist box of a gallery space, the viewer’s interaction with Vito Acconci was inescapable and unavoidable. His moans of invasive sexual desires echoed off the walls and into the viewer’s ears. Making antagonistic commands of his audience and using the slope of his ramp to amplify psychological dominance over his audience. The intended meaning of Acconci’s Seedbed was to leave a trail of semen across the unseen gallery floor, a symbolic gesture of fertility and insemination. Re-interpreting this seminal work of performance art, using documents that attempt to capture the essence of the performance, artist Marina Abramović connected with her viewer “in a space of true reciprocity” to leave the viewer to interpret the exchange as one that was voluntary and mutually pleasurable.19
16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid.
Vito Acconci. “Seedbed,” 1972. Gelatin silver print. 7 7⁄8 by 11 3⁄4 inches. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed February 14, 2021.
Carr, Kathryn. “Marina Abramović performing Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972).” New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim. November 10, 2005.
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