ACCONCI ABANDONS HIS OFF-PUTTING STYLE : SCRAMBLING AROUND IN THE ART OF THE MATTER

No one would expect to be charmed by an artist who made his reputation doing self-obsessed performances.

But when Vito Acconci’s off-putting early work is compared with his more recent efforts--in a 20-year survey at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, through Aug. 2--he seems to have become quite gregarious.

He builds houses, rooms, chairs and lounges--friendly objects that we associate with warmth and comfort. And he doesn’t just want us to look at them; there are stairs to climb, enclosures to enter, window shades to pull, a rose bed to recline upon, a swing and various seats to occupy.

Visitors scramble into his “Seat Thrown Into a Corner” (1986) and find themselves humorously framed by the black cookie-cutter silhouette of a figure recessed in a shiny silver wedge. In “People’s Wall” (1985), cut-out profiles of buoyant figures with bent knees are doors to a seating arrangement, built into an 8-ft.-x-16-ft. wall. Aluminum ladder stilts supporting a house called “Making Shelter (House of Used Parts)” (1985) lead to an attic, entered through doors that also serve as a roof.

There is no excuse for suffering museum fatigue at La Jolla where the energetic can climb into Acconci’s artworks and the sedentary can settle into an unorthodox assortment of chairs made from garbage cans and rubber tires, aluminum ladders, upholstered wood or an actual armchair encased in concrete. Those who prefer to retreat can stuff themselves into “Storage Unit (For Things and People)” (1984), a cabinet that pulls out into a chair.

Called “Vito Acconci: Domestic Trappings,” the show of 36 works is engaging--even entertaining. But it is also disturbing and politically provocative.

The catalogue essay and documentation in the exhibition remind us that Acconci became notorious in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s for self-abusive performances. Among other things, he used one hand to rub away skin from his other arm, bit as much of his nude body as he could reach, carried on 8-hour marathons of masturbation under a gallery’s false floor and dressed his penis in doll clothes while standing in a closet, waist-deep in debris.

Members of Acconci’s audience became unwitting voyeurs, listening to his moans and watching a masochistic exhibitionist or they submitted to encroachments on their space. In “Proximity Piece” (1970), he stood uncomfortably close to people viewing an exhibition at the Jewish Museum, forcing them to move. Those who descended into a basement to see a work called “Claim” (1971) risked physical harm as the blind-folded artist lashed out at them with lead pipes.

Despite its offensiveness, this work gained a considerable following in a milieu where artists were using their bodies as raw materials and confronting their audiences with taboos as part of a larger social commentary.

Acconci’s early work was bound up with an effort to bring art face to face with life and to engender a heightened awareness of human vulnerability--as well as with a young man’s need to make a name for himself.

Had he continued in that vein, Acconci might have pulverized himself into a mass of nerve endings. He certainly would have confined himself to the fringes of performance and video art. But in 1974, he decided to remove himself from his work. Over time, he stopped abusing himself and started reaching out for ways to engage others in a healthier dialogue.

Though this may seem a dramatic shift--and the tone of his work has changed from degradation to questioning acceptance--Acconci has maintained his interest in the human body, its constraints and enclosures, and in contexts for human interaction. Even at its most accessible, his art has rough edges and hard surfaces and is likely to be constructed of industrial materials.

Getting into one of his chairs can be a minor challenge. Once there, you may find yourself bumping against someone else or facing yourself in a mirror. As you lie down in the large pipe in a piece called “Hole in the Ground” (1987), someone may walk over you on stepping stones attached to the pipe.

To sit in the swing at the center of Acconci’s “Instant House” (1980) is to be enclosed by a familiar ideology while presenting an opposing one to the outside world. This collapsible house, whose walls rise when someone sits in a swing connected to pulleys, has American flags on its inner walls, Soviet flags on the outside.

This work is typical of Acconci’s publicly activated pieces that require weight or physical exertion to raise them and send conflicting signals.

Reflecting on the array of artworks presently displayed, and on dozens of others that are absent, leads to the conclusion that Acconci hasn’t mellowed all that much since his earlier years. He has just grown infinitely wiser and more mature about expressing frustrations with a crowded, urban society. As he turned from what he calls “personal, psychological space” to “public territory,” he has added layers of meaning to his art and broadened its perspective.

Though Acconci has been an occasional presence in Southern California--serving as a visiting professor, building a public sculpture at UCLA in 1981 and showing his work at San Diego State University in 1982--he is not well known here. The La Jolla exhibition reminds us that he has become one of our most cogent commentators on the ways industrialized society contains us.