Artist research - Tehching Hsieh (Recommended by Jessica Longmore)

Artist
Tehching Hsieh

I was given this artist during my tutorial with Jessica Longmore and have done a bit of research just about what he does and how it relates to my own work.

He did a piece called 'One year performance' this was a structure of around 5 pieces in which he did various things and events for one year and then displayed his findings in a exhibition.

Here are a few pieces related to the 'One year performance':

1. One part of this was called 'Cage Piece', this is where he locked himself in a cage with only a basin, lights and a pail and a single bed for a year. In this year he could not talk, read, write or listen to tv or radio. For documentation, a friend came once a day and removed waste and gave him food and took a single photograph for every day in a year. This was displayed in the exhibition! 
2. Another part was called 'Time Clock Piece', this is where he punched in every hour on the hour for a year. Every time he punched in on the hour it would take a picture of him which gave various outcomes as he did not always meet the time and had to run and would just have his hair go past the camera. Also before the piece he shaved his hair and by the end his hair was longer which showed how time passed. He displayed this with punch cards and photographs to match that time. 
3. 'Outdoor Piece' was another he produced where he stayed outdoors for a whole year and could not enter any public transport or building until the end of the year was up.
4. In 1983-4 he produced a piece of performance called 'Rope Piece'. This is where the artist spent a whole year tied up to another person by a rope and like the first piece he shaved his hair and by the end of the year it was long to show the time passed. They could only touch each-other at the end of the year. 
5. The last section to this piece of performance was called 'No Art Piece'. This was the last stage where he did not look at any art, talk about art, visit any galleries and museums which was totally opposite to what he was normally doing.

I thought this artist was very different but very similar to my own practice. This was interesting because he works with repetition, especially the one where he clocked in every hour. It relates to my receipt one as every day I come in and there will be some new receipts on my studio table and I would put them up before starting the day, definatly repetition.
Also I need to have a look how to present my work in order for it to be categorized further. I want to see how far I can go with the receipts in regards to categorization!

I am going to looking into this artist further to see how he came up with the one year performance at the start!