In Conversation with a Master of Art: Tehching Hsieh Discusses His Year-Long Performance Art Process

Tehching Hsieh, a contemporary performance artist who has lived in the United States for 37 years and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, leads a low-profile life. However, the rigor and dedication of his performance art, as well as the elusive and epic nature of his work, have earned him widespread acclaim in the contemporary art scenes of Europe and America. On Saturday (March 3), he will be invited by the “2012 Navigator Program” of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum to deliver a special lecture titled “Tehching Hsieh’s Performance Art,” marking his first in-depth public discussion about his artistic creations in Taiwan. On the day of the event, all lecture content will be simulcast via video in the atrium outside the auditorium, and interested members of the public are welcome to attend in person.

Since 1978, Tehching Hsieh has created five “One Year Performances” and one “Thirteen Year Plan” both inside and outside his studio in New York. “One Year Performance 1978–1979” (“Cage”): He confined himself to a fixed-size space for an entire year without speaking to anyone, reading, writing, listening to the radio, or watching television. His friend Cheng Weiguang was responsible for providing food, clothing, and disposing of waste. “One Year Performance 1980–1981” (“Time Clock”): He punched a time clock in his studio every hour on the hour, and was required to leave the room immediately after each punch, continuing this practice 24 hours a day for a full year. Other related performances include “One Year Performance 1981–1982” (“Outdoor”), “Art/Life, One Year Performance 1983–1984” (“Rope”), and “One Year Performance 1985–1986” (“No Art”).

Since 2000, having lifted the 13-year restriction on not exhibiting his works, he has shown his pieces and given lectures across North America, South America, Asia, and Europe. In January 2009, two major American museums curated exhibitions featuring representative works by Tehching Hsieh. These included the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York with “Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh,” which displayed documentation of “One Year Performance 1978–1979” (“Cage”), and the Guggenheim Museum’s “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989,” which featured documentation of “One Year Performance 1980–1981” (“Time Clock”). The artist was later invited to participate in the Gwangju Biennale, the Liverpool Biennial, and in September 2012, he will exhibit at the São Paulo Biennial in Brazil.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum: www.tfam.museum

●  Further Reading: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

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