655 Pennsylvania Avenue SE

Riddle #21: The Cat Is Us
November 20–December 31, 2023

An altered version of Vito Acconci's Zone (1971).

The wall text reads:

To be sure, the film on your right is difficult to watch. Not because of its length—though 15 minutes is a long time when you are standing on the street—or because nothing really seems to happen. But because of the needless cruelty inflicted on the film’s hirsute protagonist.

The story unfolds as follows. We see a cat eating, and the booted legs of a person methodically walking in a circle around him. From time to time, the cat pauses, distracted bythe man's odd behavior. When he decides to leave the area, the domineering figure quickly blocks him. At this point, the cat begins to look up at him with heart-rending confusion, then out to the camera as if seeking help. It meows inaudibly and swats at the boots. It tries to exit (several times) but it is always corralled. A sense of hopelessness ensues, and in the end, it surrenders and crouches, head down, its autonomy violated. We, as witnesses, are discomfited, soothed only in knowing that this is merely a performance and that likely the cat will be picked up, consoled, thanked, and kissed once the filming stops. (The artist was fond of his cats.)

Vito Acconci started his career as a poet, became a visual artist, and then worked in architecture. He was one of the first visual artists to create a substantial body of work in the then-still-new medium of Super-8mm. His films, like Zone, address interpersonal psychological states and emotions. They document situations involving manipulation and control, revel in abject vulnerability, and existential unease. Sometimes they picture self-inflicted bodily harm. They are disturbing because, unlike painting and sculpture, they involve real people, real time, and choreographed actions.

Acconci may have made Zone in response to a specific set of circumstances. We don’t know and it doesn’t matter. The artwork, aesthetics aside, is timeless. The person in the boots might represent a patriarch, a museum curator, a totalitarian government, or a social media company. The cat is us.