Vito Acconci (born 1940) is one of the most prominent, influential, and leading innovators in the visual arts over the past two decades. His long and illustrious career began as a poet, but his reputation was made as a conceptual, video, installation, and performance artist. His works range from site-specific to large public projects, including the seminal pieces Trappings (1971) and Seedbed (1972), language-based works such as Projections of Home, produced for ArtForum in 1988, and the more recent Adjustable Wall Bra (1991), shown at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York.

For Acconci, the exploration of self, artist, and other is crucial. In the 1960s and early 1970s, his work was autobiographical, but since then he has focused on charting the symbolism of home and country, sexuality, privacy, openness, and issues surrounding public art. Throughout his career, Acconci has been engaged in a cultural critique that assumes a relationship between artistic seriousness and an enlightened public.

He has exhibited all over the United States and Europe, and is now working on projects in Japan. He shows locally at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Judith Russi Kirshner was also instrumental in bringing his work to Chicago in the late 1970s to an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art.