Tehching
Hsieh

Tehching Hsieh is a legendary performance art pioneer. Born in Taiwan, he arrived in the United States in 1973, when he jumped ship from a merchant marine vessel in Philadelphia. He settled in New York, and in 1978 he created the first of a series of one-year performances: in The Cage Piece (1978–79) he lived in a cage inside a loft with a bed, table, and bathroom and refrained from speaking or reading. This was followed by performances in which he punched a clock every hour for one year (The Time Piece, 1980–81), lived outdoors with only a sleeping bag (The Outdoor Piece, 1981–82), was tied to a fellow artist with an eight-foot rope (Art/Life, 1983–84), and refrained from creating or talking about art (No Art Piece, 1985–86). From 1986 to 1999, in 13-Year Plan, he created art but refrained from showing it. In 2000 he stopped making art altogether. He has described his work as “about being human, how we explain time, how we measure our existence.”