Tehching Hsieh
Taiwanese Performance Artist
Nanzhou Township, Taiwan
Summary of Tehching Hsieh
Taiwanese-born artist Tehching Hsieh's long-term and grueling physical meditations focused on the mere act of living as a form of art. Using his own existence as medium, through a slim collection of Performance works spread across two decades, he places the simple monotonous passage of time onto a pedestal as artist's muse. His investigations into the most basic ennui of being alive have gained him a reputation of master in the durational and endurance art genres.
Accomplishments
- Hsieh's works present extreme glimpses of personal stamina against intense conditions such as boredom, loneliness, and lack of stimulation. Through these self-imposed situations of a forced repetitive present moment, his works represent the concept of "doing time."
- All but one of Hsieh's works have been practiced in solitude as he believes that isolation and aloneness are a good way to gain understanding about, and to respond to, the very essence of being.
- Ironically, the artist has stated his work is about "wasting time and freethinking" even as he constrains or regulates his hours and activities within a strict framework for each piece.
- The artist's work asks us to reflect on our societal acceptance of schedules and prescribed ways of being as inherently conflicting with our ability to freely live our lives.
The Life of Tehching Hsieh
Arriving in the United States from Taiwan by literally "jumping ship," Tehching Hsieh went on to become a prolific performance artist who, perhaps better than anyone, explores the fine line between "art" and "life."
Progression of Art
Cage Piece
Hsieh's first One-Year Performance, Cage Piece began on September 30, 1978, when he confined himself to an 11.5 x 9 x 8-foot wooden cage built in his Manhattan loft in TriBeCa. For a full year, he stayed within this small space, furnished only with a cot, a sink, and a bucket, forbidding himself from talking, reading, writing, or using any media.. His photographer and roommate Cheng Wei Kuong came once a day to bring him food, remove his waste from the cage, and take a single photograph as documentation of the process. The performance was also notarized by lawyer Robert Projansky. Prior to entering the cage, Hsieh had written to several influential critics and artists to tell them about his plan, and to invite them to come view the performance on pre-arranged days (which occurred once or twice a month), though he never interacted with, or even acknowledged, the spectators.
The monotony as well as the physical and mental toll of the performance become evident in the photographic documentation. At the start of the year, Hsieh had a shaved head, clean garments, and a normal appearance, whereas throughout the year, his hair grew long, he became disheveled, and his expression communicated the boredom he felt. For instance, he's seen holding his head in his hands in some images and staring blankly at the camera in others. Also visible are notches made in the wall with his fingernail to mark the passing of the days. Meals, too, became monotonous, leading him to once throw his food in frustration, an act he regretted immediately.
Journalist Brigid Delaney wrote that "In the work there is no talk or hint of transcendence through lack of stimulation and inactivity. Instead, there is just grinding boredom - the lethal sort that drives people mad." Curator and arts writer Louise des Places noted that "Although it has been misinterpreted as a religious monastic experience, a test of psychological endurance, or a critique of incarceration, the essence of the performance lies in the passage of time itself." Curator Klaus Biesenbach called the work "an ode to freedom," adding that Hsieh is "an incredibly thoughtful translator of concepts. He made the idea of meditation and contemplation very tangible for me. And, really, consider that he did this in New York City, the fastest place in the world."
Works such as Cage Piece inspired later Performance artists to self-isolate for their art, such as French artist Abraham Poincheval who locked himself inside various objects, including a taxidermic bear and a rock (in 2014 and 2017 respectively) for one to two weeks at a time.
Performance
Time Clock Piece
Hsieh's second, and best-known One Year Performance was Time Clock Piece. He explained that "When I was doing the Cage Piece, I was doing time. I thought I would continue this idea by using a time clock to record doing time. My performance works show different perspectives of thinking about life. But the perspectives are all based on the same preconditions: life is a life sentence; life is passing time; life is freethinking." He installed a factory timecard clock in his apartment and set the objective of punching in at the machine every hour, on the hour, twenty-four hours a day, for a full year (April 11, 1980, to April 11, 1981). An alarm would sound every hour to remind him to do this, and a few seconds after punching in, a 16mm camera snapped a photo of him (always wearing a grey worker's uniform) standing next to the machine. The images were strung together after the performance into a six-minute film which, as in Cage Piece, showed the progression of time through the growing of Hsieh's hair from shaved to long, and through the visible physical and emotional toll of his commitment in his posture and expression. Artist and curator Nina Miall asserted that this film strip gives a strong sense of "schizophrenic delirium." Once a month, Hsieh opened his home to visitors to come view the performance, though, as with Cage Piece, few people came.
This hourly commitment meant that for the entire year, Hsieh was unable to get proper sleep, or to engage in any activities that would take him out of the house for more than a few minutes at a time, restricting him physically to outings within a radius of one mile from his home. At the end of the year, he had missed about 1.5 percent of his check-ins. The missed check-ins were due, one time, to the artist deciding to sleep for three full hours in order to "recharge," once because the camera failed, and once when the electricity in his building went out for five minutes right at the time he was to punch in. Art historian Amelia Groom recognized these failed check-ins as a "vital component of the work as they highlight the conflict between corporeal time - the time of circadian rhythms, for example - and clock time."
Hsieh has stated that during the performance, he felt like the mythical figure of Sisyphus (who was tasked with rolling a boulder up a hill over and over, each time to have it roll back to the bottom). Said Hsieh, "It was like being in limbo, just waiting for the next punch." Curator and arts writer Louise des Places asserted that "While one might interpret this act as a critique of the monotonous nature of industrial labor, it is essential to note that Hsieh's intention lies beyond mere political commentary. Instead, he invites viewers to contemplate his unwavering acceptance of the inevitable passing of time." She understood Time Clock Piece as continuing in a tradition of artists that explore the theme of repetition, such as Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara's series I Got Up (1968-79), for which the artist stamped a postcard with the exact time he woke up each day.
Communication studies professor Vivian L. Huang wrote that "Hsieh's work shows how the access and surveillance of documentation can forestall curiosity for the greater process - whether in art or in life. While Time Clock Piece draws focus to the top of the hour, the remaining minutes of the year are fugitive. [...] In making an artistic commitment to document time, Hsieh created a performance in which the details of his undocumented life could be preserved in history yet remain free." Time Clock Piece is also renowned within the field of Performance Art particularly for Hsieh's meticulous documentation of it (which, in addition to the stamped timecards and hourly photos, included artist and witness statements), which art writer Adam Hencz called a "curatorial favorite." Recently, critic Andrew Russeth recognized Time Clock Piece as "relatable" in the COVID era, writing that the pandemic made "New York - and many other cities - smaller in so many ways, keeping people within the few blocks around their apartment and turning borough crossings into complicated journeys."
Poster, letters, photographs, timecards, time clock, 16mm film camera, 16mm film (color, silent) and uniform - The Tate, London
Outdoor Piece
Hsieh's ambitious third One Year Performance was Outdoor Piece, for which he forbade himself to enter any "building, subway, train, car, airplane, ship, cave, tent" from September 26, 1981, to September 26, 1982. As art writer Adam Hencz explained, "He walked and wandered around the city as a pilgrim, on the streets of New York City with just a backpack and a sleeping bag [as well as a camera, a map upon which he tracked his whereabouts, a flashlight, a radio, and nunchaku (nun chucks) for self-defense]. The only thing separating him from a typical homeless person was a sign hanging from his backpack, specifying the rules of the performance that he had embarked upon." According to Hsieh, "Chinatown was my kitchen; the Hudson River was my bathroom; those parking lots, empty swimming pools, and small parks were my bedroom. In winter, the Meat Market West of 14th Street was my fireplace." The performance was made especially difficult by the record-breaking cold temperatures in New York City that winter.
As with his other One Year Performances, Hsieh failed to fully accomplish his objectives, being forced to go inside at one point when he was arrested for vagrancy and placed in a jail cell for fifteen hours, though when he appeared at court for his arraignment, the judge, who had read about the performance in the Wall Street Journal, released him immediately back to the street to continue the work.
Journalist Brigid Delaney recognized Outdoor Piece as "one of the most extreme pieces of performance art ever performed." Hsieh later noted that the most stressful part of the experience was the inability to maintain cleanliness, stating, "'You are dirty' people stay away - kids laugh at you. I am a clean person. That is peace to me." Curator and writer Adrian Heathfield added "There are some really beautiful photos of the Outdoor Piece, [and] they show Hsieh's physical condition - he is covered in dirt, he is really filthy. Sometimes he gets a wash. When you are making the outdoor piece, you are making yourself very vulnerable. He was in a very vulnerable condition."
Despite the grueling difficulties involved in the performance, Hsieh stated "I felt depressing after I finished Outdoor Piece, and I felt the same after the other pieces, because of emptiness as well as having to come back to normal life and dealing with the reality."
Curator and arts writer Louise des Places wrote that "While Time Clock Piece required strict control in order to not let the performance fall apart, and Cage Piece was 'just passing time'; Outdoor Piece was an action about survival. All questioning the same topics, Hsieh's performances are so different from each other in forms. I will argue here that rather than a piece constructed strictly on time, Outdoor Piece differs from Hsieh's previous works as the performance is more based on space and orientation. Outdoor Piece is Hsieh's third significant jump. It signifies a jump out of self-isolation and estrangement, venturing into the vastness of the outside world."
Performance
Art/Life: One Year Performance (Rope Piece)
Rope Piece was Hsieh's only collaborative performance. It involved him and fellow artist Linda Montano (whom he had previously never met in person) spending an entire year linked together by an eight-foot rope tied around each of their waists, with the stipulation that they could not touch one another. The pair slept on separate beds a few feet apart, and while one was showering or using the washroom, the other stood at the door. Yet, as curator and arts writer Louise des Places notes, "every in-the-moment need or impulse became impossible. If you want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you need to wake up the other; going to grab water or just taking a look through the window would require the other person to stand up. Every daily activity, going to bed, buying groceries, bathing, would become a verbal and physical negotiation."
Hsieh explained that, additionally, "That piece came with a job, and a challenge to deal with society. The job just pays one person, and we share half. She had to take train at 5 o'clock in the morning and teach there and I went too, and we shared half [the money]." As with all of Hsieh's performances, Rope Piece was documented through photographs.
The artist described that "I wanted to make a work about human beings and their struggle with each other. We cannot face life alone, without people. But we are together and so we become each other's cage. This piece is about being like an animal, naked. We cannot hide our negative sides. We cannot be shy. It is more than just honesty: we show our weakness." As des Places noted, "Apart from the physical constraints, the lack of privacy was overwhelming. The artists recall how they became acutely self-aware of every minor action that betrayed their own hypocrisy, such as adopting different voices while speaking to different friends on the telephone. Under constant scrutiny and judgment, they were compelled to confront their deepest weaknesses and insecurities." Journalist Brigid Delaney wrote that "the performance stirs the imagination; did they fight? What happened if they wanted to have sex with someone? Did they love or hate each other by the end of the year? And are they still in touch?" The artists have reported, they did indeed fight, and Montano credits the "no touching" rule with saving her from physically harming Hsieh on numerous occasions. They also argued, often tugging aggressively on the rope between them, or throwing objects at one another, behaving, as Montano put it, "like monkeys," as well as giving each other the silent treatment for stretches of time.
By the end of the year, the artists had formed an immense bond. Said Montano of Hsieh, "He's my friend, confidant, lover, son, opponent, husband, brother, playmate, sparring partner, mother, father, etc. The list goes on and on. There isn't one word or one archetype that fits. I feel very deeply for him." Hsieh stated "I think Linda is the most honest person I've known in my life. And I feel very comfortable to talk - to share my personality with her. That's enough. I feel that's pretty good. We had a lot of fights, and I don't feel that is negative. Anybody who is tied this way, even if they were a nice couple, I'm sure they would fight too."
Performance
No Art Piece
For his fifth and penultimate artwork, Hsieh developed what curator and art writer Louise des Places called a "new (non)activity," committing to abstain from all artistic engagement (including the creation of new artworks, and any sort of interaction with the art world altogether) for a full year. His artist's statement for the piece read simply "I just go in life," and the work was not documented, as this would contradict Hsieh's mission statement. This meant no visiting museums or galleries, no talking about art, reading about art, not even thinking about it, though, by his own admission, this last point would be quite impossible.
Artist John Matturri recounted how "A couple of days before he embarked upon the year spent outdoors a very philosophically fastidious friend of ours pressed him to define precisely the demarcation between being indoors and outdoors; Hsieh, visibly nervous about his coming ordeal, noted that he was simply relying on vague commonsensical intuitions. In the case of the 'Not Art' piece this vagueness at times became comic. He reportedly would turn away from a picture of the Bay of Naples at a pizza parlor but, if I remember correctly, would still go to movies. One story had him hiding in a closet when someone who had declared the current segment of her life as art entered a room. Having coffee with Hsieh after the piece was over, I asked him if he could have spent the year painting as long as he declared the paintings not to be art. He ceded the point but noted that he was keeping to intuitive definitions of art."
As des Places wrote, "This performance, or rather absence of performance, raises an intriguing question: Can everything be considered performance art? Hsieh's deliberate decision to abstain from artistic pursuits challenges conventional notions of what constitutes artistic expression." She saw Hsieh as following in the footsteps of earlier artists who "decide that nothingness could be art," such as Yves Klein whose 1958 Le Vide (The Void) involved emptying the gallery space, painting the walls and floor white, and welcoming viewers to experience the "absence of art." Perhaps even more intriguingly, however, Hsieh's No Art Piece asks, "is life itself art?" Over the four previous years, he had devised artistic projects that explored notions relating to time and space, revealing the way in which our adherence to schedules and prescribed ways of being often interfere with our ability to truly live our lives. With No Art Piece, finally, he flipped the script, embracing life, no holds barred. In the artist's own words, "There could arise an occupational habit when doing art for a long time. For me, art is dynamic; sometimes you have to go back to life to find the art."
Performance
Thirteen Year Plan
Hsieh's final performance work spanned thirteen years, and, as with the previous work, No Art Piece, was conceptually more about absence than presence. His commitment over the thirteen-year period was to produce art that would never be shown publicly, therefore being undocumented, and essentially untraceable, lost to oblivion.
In his own words, Hsieh described his motivation for this duration as simply "surviving." Because the work was based on existing alone, and his commitment was to purposefully not share any details of the work, little is known about the motivations, concepts, or actions of his "invisible" performances of this time. However, information exists on one idea he developed during this period, Disappearance, which involved the artist vanishing from his life (from New York City, from his social circles, from his role as an artist, and essentially from his identity). Though, as curator and arts writer Louise des Places notes, "Hsieh ultimately decided not to pursue this performance further, finding it excessively burdensome." He had originally intended to make it to Alaska, but reportedly got no further than Seattle, where, stuck working menial jobs, he felt just as he had when he had first arrived fresh off the boat (literally) in the United States. Des Places adds, "Very secretive, the performer just admitted, when asked what the action was about, 'I kept myself alive'." This phrase went on to appear on the "concluding report" that Hsieh issued at the end of his Thirteen Year Plan, exactly on his forty-ninth birthday. Comprised of cutout letters pasted onto a sheet of white paper, the report read "I kept myself alive. I passed the time. Dec 31, 1999." Then, on the first day of the new millennium, Hsieh pledged to never make art again.
Hsieh has explained his Thirteen Year Plan by saying that "After the No Art piece it seemed contradictory to go back to doing art publicly. I had to do art underground for a longer period of time, which was the last thirteen years of the millennium." When asked "Is art without a public still art?" (a twist on the classic philosophical "if a tree falls in the woods when do one is around, does it still make a sound?" conundrum), he replied, "Art cannot exist without public, but the public could be in the future - I published the work after thirteen years."
Performance
Biography of Tehching Hsieh
Early Life
Tehching Hsieh was born in Nanzhou, a rural town in southern Taiwan, and he was the oldest of fifteen siblings. His father, Ching Hsieh, ran a small trucking company and, although he did not consider it a realistic career path, he allowed his son to study painting privately. As a teen, the young artist enjoyed rock and roll music, wore his hair long, and was an avid reader, with a particular interest in Nietzsche, Kafka, and Dostoyevsky. In 1967, at age seventeen, he dropped out of high school.
In 1970, Hsieh began his three compulsory years of military service, a term of civil duty that is oftentimes viewed as an extreme example of self-sacrifice, structured discipline, and self-limitation: all traits that would come to inform his artworks. Upon completing it, he held his first solo exhibition at the gallery of the American News Bureau in Taiwan. Not long after, he abandoned painting entirely, shifting his focus toward exploring Performance Art. His first major performance, Jump Piece, involved him jumping out of a second-floor window, which resulted in two broken ankles. This act has been likened to Yves Klein's photomontage Leap into the Void (1960), as well as the work of Dutch Performance artist Bas Jan Ader, who made his career out of falling from chairs, roofs, tree branches, a bicycle into a canal, and more. Hsieh documented Jump Piece with a Super 8 camera.
In 1974, while working as a seaman on an oil tanker, Hsieh jumped overboard near Philadelphia and spent $150 on a taxi to get to New York City, where he would live illegally for the next fourteen years until granted amnesty in 1988. Drawn to New York, he later explained: "New York was the arts center of the world that I longed for. As an illegal immigrant entering the States in 1974, I paid a high price of survival, and at the same time, I tried to transform life into art. New York is the place I express art freely." During his first four years in the United States, he lived in an unheated apartment with another Taiwanese man. Hsieh supported himself by working as a dishwasher at Chinese restaurants, and as a construction worker. His family in Taiwan also sent him money. His life as an undocumented immigrant was marked by insolation and alienation, made more challenging by his limited English.
Reflecting on his early experiences in New York, Hsieh explained that "When I got to New York, I took two years to find Soho. I'm illegal and I'm afraid to take subway. I only know Washington Square and I only know people doing portrait in the street - I don't know this art scene." Communication studies professor Vivian L. Huang has shared that "Hsieh suggested to me that the rigor of his life as an undocumented immigrant prepared him for the rigor of his durational performances." Hsieh himself has stated, "I felt good doing my work in an illegal context; it was difficult, but I had some kind of freedom. I had no identity. Of course, that's a difficult status, but it gave me energy. If you're scared, you can't do it. You have to take the risk."
Mature Period
Hsieh has said that during his early years in New York, "I was eager to do art but had no ideas to do any work. It was frustrating. I had a studio in Tribeca, and I walked back and forth doing my thinking every day after work. One day all of a sudden, I thought: what else do I look for? I don't need to go out to find art, I am already in my work." Thus, in 1978 he began the first of his five One Year Performances. His mother, though unable to understand the sort of performance work he intended to do, supported his first project, Cage Piece, by sending him $10,000, stipulating to her son "Don't be a criminal."
Hsieh embarked on year-long performance projects because, as he states, "One year is the basic unit of how we count time. It takes the earth a year to move around the sun. [...] It is about being human, how we explain time, how we measure our existence." The local art scene began to take notice.
After completing five One Year Performances, Hsieh began his Thirteen Year Plan (1986-99), during which time he vowed to make artworks that would never be publicly shown. Although creating, he withdrew from visibility, attempting to disappear and coined his sole purpose as "surviving." At the end of this period, he announced "I kept myself alive." His primary themes of thinking, living, and passing time would mark this final performance.
On December 31, 1999, Hsieh pledged to never make art again.
Later Years
Since 2000, though he no longer makes art, Hsieh continues to give lectures and interviews. His performances are still exhibited, notably in a 2009 show at the MoMA in New York, and in Taiwan's Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. He currently lives in a loft he renovated in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn near a small cafe and Asian food store that he runs with his third ex-wife Qinqin Li. Critic Andrew Russeth describes the place as "both a nice neighborhood shop and an extended performance."
Hsieh states that, although he doesn't create new work, "I'm not dead yet. I'm still alive. And I show my work, so that makes me a sub-artist, in my own words. In Taiwan, we often say, 'I'm just trying to make both ends meet.'" Reflecting on his productive years, he notes that "My work was not part of any art movement, it was not easy to be categorized, I was an outsider in the art world - and in reality. But I believed that solitude is good for understanding and responding to the essence of being, I believed in what I do. Being overlooked by the art world didn't bother me, I made a living through worker's jobs. That suits my character better. Even now, the neighbors on my block only know me as a construction guy, not an artist at all."
The Legacy of Tehching Hsieh
During his relatively brief artistic career, Tehching Hsieh distinguished himself as a pioneering figure in "durational" or "endurance" art, performance practices that often involve physical or mental hardship, such as pain, solitude, or exhaustion, frequently over prolonged periods. Both practices fall under the umbrella of Process Art, a movement where an end product or object of art is not the principal focus, but rather the act of making it. His peer, the legendary Performance artist Marina Abramović, has called him a "master," while referring to herself as "just a little student of him." Abramović also described Hsieh's works as "tools [...] to accept life as it is," adding "That's why these works will never die, because you are dealing with the nature of life itself."
Critic Andrew Russeth explains that "Another way to think of [durational Performance or Endurance art] is as waiting art: works that addresses what it means to live with uncertainty and to keep going, often with no clear end in sight." Arts journalist and curator Louise des Places asserts that "Although Tehching Hsieh may not embrace the label of a 'spiritual guide,' his work has prompted me to reflect upon my own relationship with time. I have become more conscious of its passage, yet without passing judgment on how I choose to spend it." Moreover, Hsieh is celebrated in the curatorial world for his meticulous and detailed documentation of these lengthy performances.
According to arts writer Demie Kim, "Some skeptics might wonder why the artist would ever choose to subject himself to such physical and mental extremes, and how 'wasting time' could even qualify as art. Hsieh has stressed that his works are not about pain or suffering, but more broadly about the nature of human existence itself. [...] By creating art that essentially gave form to everyday life and confining his performances to a standard unit of time, Hsieh's work asks us to meditate on what it means to be human - to pass time and measure time, to set rules and boundaries, to be free or constrained, active or passive." Says the artist, "We can talk about suffering but then we have to talk about freedom. Or we can talk about freedom, but we also have to talk about discipline. There are many things interwoven. [...] For me, it's about passing time not how to pass time. With the work, I try to leave communications open to all responses."
Due to his "outsider" status (as a cultural other and, for many years, an illegal immigrant to the United States), Hsieh operated in obscurity. Curator Klaus Biesenbach explains that Hsieh was "a bit like a myth," and journalist Deborah Sontag writes that "For decades he was almost an urban legend [...] The talk was cultish, flecked with reverence for the conceptual purity and physical extremity of Mr. Hsieh's performances." Now, however, he is recognized as one of the most influential figures in the history of Performance art. In addition to Abramović, Hsieh has influenced a number of more recent artists, such as France's Abraham Poincheval who has locked himself inside various objects, including a rock and a taxidermic bear, as well as YouTuber Benjamin Bennett, who, since 2014, has paid homage to Hsieh in a durational performative video series titled Sitting and Smiling.