Hsieh Tehching

Performance artist Tehching Hsieh returns, at the age of sixty-five, to the original sites of his performances in Taipei and New York, making a meditation on the resonances of these far-sighted works. Presented at the Taiwanese Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale.

Tehching Hsieh: One Year Performance, Art Documents 1978 - 1999

In his third one-year performance piece, from 26 September 1981 through 26 September 1982, Hsieh spent one year outside, not entering buildings or shelter of any sort, including cars, trains, airplanes, boats, or tents. He moved around New York City with a packbag and a sleeping bag.

An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent and daring confrontations with the Chinese authorities.

For one year, Tehching Hsieh punched a worker’s time clock located in his studio, on the hour, every hour. Marking the occasion by taking a self-portrait on a single frame of 16mm film, the resulting reel documents a year in his life at approximately one second per day – a pace that is polar opposite of the enduring length of the original performance. The punch cards, witnessed by a third party for authenticity, and other ephemera, document Hsieh’s life restructured around this highly repetitive task.