The Concrete Body

“Deeply resonant . . . meaningful . . . incisive . . . compelling and persuasive . . . With The Concrete Body, Archias illuminates the art of Rainer, Schneemann, and Acconci in bold new terms.”—Emily Liebert, Artforum

“[Archias] significantly revisit[s] the body of the sixties as a living and breathing resource of inspiration, complexity, and revolution.”—Aliza Edelman, Woman’s Art Journal

“Meticulously researched and replete with photographs of performances.”—Biba Bell, The Drama Review

Winner of the College Art Association’s 2018 Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism

“The Concrete Body is a refreshing, original, and beautifully written rethinking of how we should understand performance practices of the 1960s. Elise Archias’s reading of adaptation and desire, in particular, may well become the best thing written on Vito Acconci to date.”—Eve Meltzer, New York University


"Archias wisely brings together three important figures from the early history of performance art, revealing how they used the human body to understand the sexual revolution, psychological debates, and even consumer capitalism itself.”—Joshua Shannon, University of Maryland