February 21, 2005

One Year Performance, by Sam Hsieh. (Quicktime movie, slow-loading.) Tehching (Sam) Hsieh made five "One Year Performance" pieces: the Cage Piece, in which he spent a year in a cage; the Time Piece (also see main link), where he punched a clock every hour for one year; the Outdoor Piece, spent entirely outdoors; Art/Life, collaborating with Linda Montano, to whom he was connected by an eight-foot rope; and the fifth, unnamed performance, marked by an absence of art (halfway down).

I learned about the artist in this AskMefi thread. His works are available on a DVD-ROM. Hsieh, now 50, is currently exhibiting at LACE in Hollywood.

posted by tracicle 19 years ago
  • This is great stuff. Strange little thing that I couldn't help noticing: in the time-lapse video in the main link, the left-handed side of his collar (his right side) seemed to move about a lot more than the other side. Illusion? An artefact of the way he puts his clothes on? Of his posture? Or (simple explanation) is he just triggering the camera with his right hand, so naturally his right side moves a bit more? Either way, once you spot it, it's very hard to look at anything other than that one side of his collar, wiggling about like a mad thing.
  • Monkeyfilter: wiggling about like a mad thing.
  • Call me materialistic, but the only thing I could think when reading about the Cage Piece was - man New York is a hell of an expensive place to sit and a cage and think. Why not Poughkeepsie?
  • ooh, thanks for posting this. I'd remembered hearing about the piece that involved being tied to another person for a year back when it happened, but had forgotten the details. Interesting to see his other works!
  • Linda Montano taught at UT back when I was in art school there. I thought she was a crazy idiot. She still is... only now I realize the value in being a crazy idiot and wish I had spent more time around her.
  • She doesn't sound like a very nice person, just from what Hsieh was saying in the interview in the "absence" link - how she basically took their joint work and claimed it as her own. I'm not really a big art person, especially when it comes to performance art, but I watched the Quicktime movie and was amazed at the commitment involved. Imagine a whole year of checking in every hour of every day, no matter what you're doing. Married to a clock.