Tehching Hsieh, a contemporary performance artist who has lived in the United States for 37 years, currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. He leads a low-profile life, but his rigorous and dedicated performance art, along with the elusive and epic nature of his works, has earned him high acclaim in the contemporary art circles 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,” where he will discuss his creations in depth with the audience for the first time in Taiwan. On the day of the event, all lecture content will be simultaneously broadcast via video in the atrium outside the audiovisual room. Interested members of the public are welcome to attend in person.
Work “One-Year Performance 1978–1979” (“Cage”) by Taiwanese-American artist Tehching Hsieh. (Photo provided by Taipei Fine Arts Museum)
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 alone within a fixed-size space for an entire year without speaking to anyone, reading, writing, listening to the radio, or watching TV. His friend Cheng Weiguang provided food, clothing, and handled waste disposal. “One-Year Performance 1980–1981” (“Time Clock Piece”): He punched a time clock in his studio every hour on the hour, and was required to leave the room immediately after each punch, for 24 hours a day over the course of a year. Other related performances include “One-Year Performance 1981–1982” (“Outdoor Piece”), “Art/Life, One-Year Performance 1983–1984” (“Rope Piece”), and “One-Year Performance 1985–1986” (“No Art”).
Tehching Hsieh’s “One-Year Performance 1980–1981” (“Time Clock Piece”), where he punched a time clock in his studio every hour for a year. (Photo provided by Taipei Fine Arts Museum)
Since 2000, having lifted the 13-year restriction on not exhibiting his work, he has shown his pieces and given lectures across North America, South America, Asia, and Europe. In January 2009, two major U.S. museums curated exhibitions featuring representative works by Tehching Hsieh. These included the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, with its exhibition “Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh,” showcasing documentation of “One-Year Performance 1978–1979” (“Cage”), as well as the Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989,” which presented documentation of “One-Year Performance 1980–1981” (“Time Clock Piece”). 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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