The Ropes of Consultation: Tehching Hsieh's Performance Art 1978-1999

Tehching Hsieh began his year-long performance art pieces in New York in 1978:

1978-1979 Cage Piece
For one year, he lived in a self-built cage, without speaking, reading, or listening to the radio, while still eating.

1979-1980 Time Clock Piece
For one year, he punched a time clock and took a mug shot every hour. After each punch, he had to leave his studio.

1981-1982 Outdoor Piece
For one year, he stayed outdoors, never entering any covered spaces, including public transportation like buses, subways, trains, or planes.

1983-1984 Rope Piece / Art / Life Piece
For one year, he was tied to artist Linda Montano with an eight-foot rope, without making physical contact.

1985-1986 No Art Piece
For one year, he did no art, read no art, talked no art, and visited no art-related places. He simply lived.

1986-1999 Thirteen-Year Plan
For thirteen years, he did not publicly exhibit his art or his life as an artist.

To research Tehching Hsieh’s performance art, author Hsu Ching-Yueh visited New York twice in 2007 and 2011 for in-depth interviews. Combining her extensive research in art history and theory, she compares Hsieh’s work with that of Duchamp, Dada, Fluxus, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Minimal Art. She also draws upon the theories of Danto, Deleuze, and Foucault, and incorporates the spirit of Dostoevsky and Kafka's novels, as well as Nietzsche’s concepts of "eternal recurrence" and "will to power," throughout the book.

The author proposes the concepts of "negotiation" and "transfer." While "negotiation" frequently occurs in daily life, in art it goes beyond merely exchanging values or conditions, instead using psychological "transfer" to achieve an intrinsic connection between lives. Tehching Hsieh chose his 50th birthday, December 31, 1999, to complete his sixth piece and publicly announce his retirement from the art world, signifying a shift in the meaning of life.