Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950). One Year Performance 1980–1981, April 11, 1980–April 11, 1981. Installation of documentary photographs and original performance relics, including poster, documents, 366 time cards, 366 24-hour images, 16mm film, time clock, 16mm movie camera, uniform, shoes, and footprints, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist. Photo: Michael Shen. © 1981 Tehching Hsieh, New York

By the 1970s, Asian traditions and values had become such a part of the intellectual and social fabric of the U.S. that they contributed to the human-potential and environmental movements, new-age spiritualism, and other popular culture developments. Asian traditions grew in popularity in American culture, and gradually the long-entrenched “East-West” divides began to break down. Artists investigated the possibilities of video, installation, and live performance art. Some used extreme endurance techniques to explore meditation, self-awareness, and political resistance. Whether as a form of political protest or an expression of social and spiritual anguish, performance art has caused us to reassess the way we derive meaning from art.

Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950), a pioneer of performance art in Taiwan, began his career as a painter in the late 1960s, and then made a dramatic debut as a performance artist in 1972 when he jumped from the third floor of a building in Taipei. The event was naturally considered shocking and seems to have been the artist’s most influential work in Taiwan.

In 1974 he arrived in the U.S. as an illegal immigrant, and continued to engage in risky body “performances” including living in a state of self-imposed homelessness on the streets of New York for a year. Hsieh’s way of being in the world is to live in the present tense. His work demands enormous physical and mental endurance that places the artist in harsh and extreme circumstances. His works are unparalleled in their physical difficulty over long periods of time and in their conception of art and life as simultaneous processes.

In Punching the Time Clock on the Hour, One Year Performance (1980–81) he punched a time clock every hour on the hour for one year, documenting each register with a photograph and growing his hair to illustrate the passage of time. The resulting documentation presents a year passing in six minutes. On December 31, 1999, Hsieh claimed that he would probably no longer make art. It appears that his art and life have merged so seamlessly that art has disappeared from his life, and his life has disappeared from art.

• From April 11, 1980 to April 11, 1981 Tehching Hsieh performed a work where he punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Some people see him as a groundbreaking artist and a leader in the field of performance art. Others believe his work is destructive and not art at all. What is your reaction to his work? Explain.
• Critics have commented that in Hsieh’s performances there is no boundary between art and life. Explain how this performance merges art and life.
• Hsieh has been asked if it was difficult to reenter the world after a year of devoting himself solely to the performance. He responded, “Not really, I just began sleeping through the night.” What other adjustments do you think he needed to make? Imagine and discuss how committing yourself to this performance for a year would impact your life.

• YouTube has many videos that show the passage of time, including the progress of a woman’s pregnancy and documentations of successful weight-loss regimens, among many other examples. Think about your own life and select an aspect of it that you would like to document over time. You can document your project with photographs, video, sound recording, in a journal, or in some other way that you devise. Then share your work with your classmates.
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• The 1970s and ’80s saw the emergence of video, installation, and live performance as important new ways to create art. In addition to Hsieh, artists creating interesting and challenging works included Linda Montano (who collaborated with Hsieh on another one-year performance), Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, and Bill Viola. Research the work of one of these artists and compare his or her approach to Hsieh’s.
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