Tehching Hsieh

Taiwanese-born Hsieh is one of the seminal performance artists of the 20th century. Raising questions about the conceptual development of art, Hsieh has explored radical new territory in long-form durational performance. His pioneering work in the medium began with his earliest Super 8 film recording (Jump Piece, 1973) and further developed into his iconic One Year Performa nces of the late seventies and early eighties. The first One Year Performa nce, Cage Piece (1978-79), involved Hsieh living in a cage in self-imposed isolation in his studio for a year, a period during which Hsieh did not converse or create work. This physical confinement was followed by the grueling Time Clock Piece performance (1980-81), in which Hsieh punched a time clock every hour on the hour for one year. In both cases, Hsieh incorporated the use of photography to document the passage of time. In Cage Piece, photographs were taken of Hsieh daily. In Time Clock Piece, Hsieh took a still shot of himself from a 16mm movie camera every hour after punching the time clock; as the resulting film progresses through the individual frames, the viewer experiences a time-lapse sequence of the artist over the course of the year. Hsieh continued to use long duration works to make art and life simultaneous in the fifth One Year Performance, No Art Piece (1985-86), and in his last piece, Thirteen Year Plan (1986-1999), in which he made art but chose not to show it publicly, intentionally retreating from the art world into a sustained invisibility lasting to the new millennium. Elements from Hsieh's Cage Piece, including the cage itself, were shown earlier this year to great critical acclaim at the Museum of Modern Art in Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh, the museum's inaugural exhibition in an ongoing series on performance. Time Clock Piece was included in the major exhibition, The Third Mind: Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989, at the Guggenheim Museum in the spring of this year. A definitive monograph on Hsieh's work co-authored with Adrian Heathfield - Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh - has recently been published. The book is a comprehensive overview of Hsieh's year-long performance series and includes an extensive selection of photographs and historical material from the period. ( Sean Kelly Gallery)