Taiwanese conceptual and performance artist Tehching Hsieh is currently featured in his first major U.S. exhibition at Dia Beacon, showcasing six of his legendary "One Year Performances" that demonstrate an unprecedented merging of art and life. The exhibition, titled "Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978-1999," presents works from an artist who has become such a cultural icon that he appears as a character in numerous contemporary novels, including Rachel Kushner's "The Flame Throwers" and Lisa Hsiao Chen's "Activities of Daily Living."
Hsieh, who arrived in New York in 1974 as an undocumented immigrant after literally jumping ship in Delaware, began his groundbreaking series of yearlong performances in 1978. Each performance involved extreme forms of deprivation and endurance that pushed the boundaries of what art could be. His first piece, "Cage Piece" (1978-79), involved locking himself in a wooden cage for an entire year with no contact with the outside world. This was followed by "Time Clock Piece" (1980-81), where he punched a time clock every hour for a full year, limiting him to 59-minute intervals outside his apartment and preventing him from ever getting a full night's sleep.
The artist's most physically demanding work, "Outdoor Piece" (1981-82), required him to live on the streets of Manhattan for an entire year with only a sleeping bag for shelter. Perhaps his most famous collaboration, "Art/Life" or "Rope Piece" (1983-84), saw Hsieh tie himself with an eight-foot rope to fellow performance artist Linda Montano for a year. His final completed one-year performance, "No Art Piece" (1985-86), involved refusing to make, see, read, or discuss art for the entire duration.
What distinguishes Hsieh from other body-oriented performance artists of the 1970s like Chris Burden or Marina Abramović is his rejection of spectacle. Rather than performing publicly, Hsieh relied on systematic documentation treated as legal evidence. Each performance began with a written statement defining the parameters like a contract, accompanied by calendars marking dates when visitors could witness the work in progress, usually at his Hudson Street loft once or twice monthly.
The artist employed various legal mechanisms to ensure authenticity. For "Cage Piece," a lawyer's statement verified that the signed paper seal around the cell door remained intact after 365 days. "Time Clock Piece" included witness statements confirming the authenticity of accumulated time cards. For "Art/Life," a colleague affixed a lead seal with his signature to the rope to prevent secret removal by either participant.
The exhibition presents these works through their documentary evidence, creating a powerful meditation on time, endurance, and artistic commitment. "Cage Piece" is represented through identical daily photographs showing Hsieh's growing hair as the only indication of passing time, alongside prisoner-style countdown marks carved into the cage wall. "Time Clock Piece" features color photographs of the artist punching in, a six-minute-fifty-five-second film condensing a year of single-frame shots, and the actual time cards.
"Outdoor Piece" is documented through photographs taken by Hsieh and friends showing him sleeping, bathing, and surviving on city streets, accompanied by daily photocopied maps marking locations of various activities. The "Art/Life" documentation proves particularly captivating, showing custom-built beds, moments of boredom, dog walks, and Hsieh working carpentry jobs while Montano waited below his ladder. However, the cassette tapes of their daily conversations remain sealed, never to be heard.
Critic Marcia Tucker noted in 1986 that some viewed Hsieh's work as mocking the homeless and incarcerated, while she argued it made moral statements about social issues through extreme self-discipline and endurance. However, for Hsieh as an undocumented immigrant, these weren't abstract premises but real risks. His 1978 work "Wanted by U.S. Immigration Service" featured a poster with his photo and fingerprints, created during depression from living underground in fear of detention.
The intersection of art and life became starkly real during "Outdoor Piece" when Hsieh was arrested on March 3, 1982, not because someone responded to his challenge in the "Illegal America" exhibition at Franklin Furnace, but for assault with a blunt object while defending himself in an altercation. The arrest record, now part of the Dia exhibition documentation, represents the ultimate merging of art and life in both the best and worst possible ways.
The exhibition also includes "Tehching Hsieh 1986-1999 (Thirteen Year Plan)," during which the artist made work that would never be seen by anyone, represented by empty galleries containing only statements of intention and blank calendars. This final gesture completed Hsieh's radical exploration of time, visibility, and the fundamental question of what constitutes art when separated from audience and spectacle.
