His move from performance artist (his most famous piece, “Seedbed,” included him lying beneath a false floor in a gallery, masturbating and speaking to gallery visitors over a hidden mic) to architect “confused his peers and caused his profile in the art world to recede, to the point where many younger artists who were indirectly influenced by his work had little idea who had created it. In his later years, Mr. Acconci sometimes agonized over this situation, but he said he had no choice but to follow his interests where they took him.”