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Oral History Interview with Vito Acconci, 2008 June 21-28

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Oral History Interview with Vito Acconci, 2008 June 21-28 Oral history interview with Vito Acconci, 2008 June 21-28 Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Vito Acconci on 2008 June 21 and 28. The interview was conducted at Acconci's studio (Studio Milo) in Brooklyn, NY by Judith O. Richards for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Acconci has reviewed the transcript and has made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview JUDITH RICHARDS: This is Judith Richards interviewing Vito Acconci at his studio at 20 J Street, Brooklyn, on June 21, 2008, for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, disc number one. So, Vito. Let's start at the very beginning and ask you to talk about your family—when you were born, where you were born. Anything about your parents, your grandparents, your siblings, the whole thing. And then we'll work into your— VITO ACCONCI: Well, maybe as I start talking, you can ask specific questions. MS. RICHARDS: Yes. MR. ACCONCI: Because you've asked a very, very broad one. MS. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. ACCONCI: I was born in the Bronx. I was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1940. My parents were—my father was Italian, from Italy. He had come to the United States at the age of 11. MS. RICHARDS: Do you know what year he came? MR. ACCONCI: He was born in 1904—I think 1915. MS. RICHARDS: Where in Italy? MR. ACCONCI: Aquila in the Abruzzo mountain region south of Rome. My mother was also Italian, but born in the United States—same region or similar region. Her family came from Campobasso. My father was a bathrobe manufacturer. They met at a bathrobe factory on—around 23rd Street, actually. MS. RICHARDS: In Manhattan? MR. ACCONCI: Near the Flatiron building, but I don't know exactly there. MS. RICHARDS: Was she working there? MR. ACCONCI: Yes. They were both working there. When was this? I remember hearing from my family that they knew each other a relatively long time before they were married. But now I admit I don't remember—but probably about 11 years, 12 years. They were married in—two years before I was born. They were married '38, maybe '39. MS. RICHARDS: What is your exact birth date? MR. ACCONCI: January 24, 1940. So the story I had heard was that, you know, they waited 11 years to get married. My father, who has an amazing influence on my life—and hopefully we'll go into this. My father said that, obviously, he had to make sure. There are four million women in New York, so he had to make sure that— as far as I could tell, they an amazingly close relationship. MS. RICHARDS: What was your mother's name? What were your parents' names? MR. ACCONCI: My father's name was Hamilcar, or in Italian, Amilcare, which led to my middle name. MS. RICHARDS: Would you spell that? MR. ACCONCI: Yes. The Italian version is A​-M-I-L-C-A-R-E; in English, Hamilcar, H- A​-M-I-L-C-A-R-E. It has historical ramifications, and it was continued in my family. Hamilcar Barca was a Carthaginian, who was a great —strangely, a great enemy of Rome. He had a son named Hannibal, and my middle name is Hannibal. And Hannibal tried to attack Rome by crossing the Alps with elephants; he failed. [Laughs.] But I come from—my father's side of the family is incredibly named. My grandmother's name, my father's mother, is Crocifissa, crucifix in Italian. MS. RICHARDS: Spell that? MR. ACCONCI: C-R-O-C-I-F-I-S-S-A. I'm partially guessing, but I think I'm close—but, crucifix. MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. MR. ACCONCI: Yeah. There were three children in my father's family. My father was Hamilcar. My uncle, his brother, was Themistocles. MS. RICHARDS: Wow. MR. ACCONCI: And their sister was Cabiria. So things started for me before I was born. [Laughs.] Language started for me very early. MS. RICHARDS: Indeed. MR. ACCONCI: And my father—and as I said, my father came to the United States when he was 11. I only found out when he died—and he died, unfortunately, very—relatively early. He died at the age of 58 in 1962. I found out then, even though my father was, you know, an avid newspaper reader, an avid follower of everyday politics, I realized my father had never become an American citizen, because I think for him that would have been—he had to retain some loyalty to Italy. There was a strange—I mean, there was—luckily, my father had an incredible mix. There was an over-praise and an over-adulation of Italy. So I grew up probably learning to despise Italy because it was so favored in my family. I'm skipping around a lot, but I remember when I was a teenager, an uncle of mine throwing me out of the house for defending Irish people. So it was a [laughs]—you know, I started to think there's a reason for those thick walls in Italy, those thick walls in Rome. This is about closure, this is about isolation. And I despised it. MS. RICHARDS: Secrecy. MR. ACCONCI: Everything in the family—I remember my mother—and this was a language habit— MS. RICHARDS: What was your mother's name? MR. ACCONCI: My mother's name was much simpler than that, Catherine, except it really wasn't Catherine. Apparently, her name was— MS. RICHARDS: Catherine with a "C"? MR. ACCONCI: With a "C." But her name really was Chiara, which should be translated probably as Claire. MS. RICHARDS: And how do you spell that? MR. ACCONCI: Chiara, I'm not so sure. I think it's C-H-I-A-R-A. And somehow in the United States, people couldn't pronounce Chiara, so it became Catherine, you know, or "Kay" in my family. MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. MR. ACCONCI: Just as Hamilcar became "Ame." Themistocles became "Denny." Cabiria, I never heard a shortened version of that. MS. RICHARDS: So you were born in the Bronx, you said? MR. ACCONCI: Yeah. MS. RICHARDS: Do you remember where in the Bronx? MR. ACCONCI: Exactly. Well, in fact, I remember the address. No, no, that's not true. It was on a street called Bathgate Avenue—Bathgate and Fordham Road. Fordham University was across the street, across Fordham Road. The Bronx Zoo was four blocks away. The New York Botanical Gardens—you know, I was a city kid. I lived on the third floor of an apartment. But Fordham University was part of my playground. Bronx Zoo was, Botanical Gardens. You know, you didn't need a private house. [Laughs.] This was, you know—or I never thought I needed a private house, never knew one, you know. MS. RICHARDS: Do you have brothers or sisters? MR. ACCONCI: No, I was an only child. And a very spoiled one. A very spoiled one. I mean, I grew up—my family was— MS. RICHARDS: The only Italian son. MR. ACCONCI: I mean, my family was relatively poor. They never let me know that. My father was—you know, one thing I very much learned from my father was a total inability to handle money or to care about money. It was so unimportant to my father. I mean, I can't even say that. Was it unimportant or was he just incapable? I don't think it was important. What was important to my father was music, art, and literature. MS. RICHARDS: So your involvement, your interest in art was from him? MR. ACCONCI: Was totally accepted. MS. RICHARDS: And totally accepted, not from your mother? MR. ACCONCI: Not just accepted—not from my mother at all. My mother was much more practical. But she didn't really have a say in this family. [Laughs.] She was an Italian mother. And she had such respect and love for my father, who in turn had, I think, the same for her—but it was very clear that he would—whatever he said was accepted. My father lived in a world of puns. I mean, I grew up—my father so— MS. RICHARDS: So the language— MR. ACCONCI: So loved Italy. But when he came to the United States, so fell in love with the American language. So, you know, I had a childhood in which he would read Dante to me and he would play Verdi. But he would also play Cole Porter. He would read William Faulkner to me. MS. RICHARDS: Did they only speak English in your house? MR. ACCONCI: My grandmother, the Crucifix, lived in the apartment across the hall. They always spoke Italian. My grandmother hardly spoke English. MS. RICHARDS: So you didn't learn Italian? MR. ACCONCI: I didn't learn Italian—it certainly wasn't forced on me. But, you know, I grew up—and as I said, I was born in 1940. So, you know, when I was conscious of language—I don't know. When do you become conscious of language? I'm not sure.
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