And Now, A Year of Recognition

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March 2, 2009

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After a lifetime of extreme, little-known performances, 58-year-old Tehching Hsieh is suddenly in the spotlight. In 1978, four years after immigrating to the United States from Taiwan, his existential despair at immigrant life inspired his first performance work, “Cage Piece.” Hsieh built a cage in a loft apartment, shaved his head, donned a white uniform and spent the next year alone in captivity. Other year-long performances followed, such as “the year he punched a time-clock hourly, the year he lived on the streets, the year he spent tethered by a rope to a female artist.” Now, Hsieh has a one-man show at the MoMA , an exhibit at the Guggenheim, a forthcoming book Out of Now that chronicles his body of work, and his first grant from the United States Artists. Deborah Sontag’s New York Times profile of Hsieh tells his incredible story.

BSKY

Julie Greicius

Julie Greicius was Art Editor for The Rumpus when it launched in January 2009. One year later, she became Senior Literary Editor, and later, Senior Features Editor. Julie also co-edited the first book published by The Rumpus, Rumpus Women, Vol. 1, featuring personal essays and illustration from twenty kick-ass contributors. Her writing been featured on The Rumpus, Midnight Breakfast, Stanford Medicine Magazine, and BuzzFeed, as well as in the anthology The 27th Mile. She lives in California and is a member of The Rumpus Advisory Board.

One response

Amstutz

March 2, 2009

Loved the New York Times article and I haven’t seen the exhibits, but is this really art? People spend years locked in a cage and lifetimes out in the street, and it isn’t art. Sure, he did it voluntarily and pushed it to an extreme form but what he did was more of a demonstration of physical ( and mental) endurance rather than artistic expression, in my opinion. I suppose I’ll have to check out the shows to know.