Image: Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance 1980-1981, Waiting to punch the time clock. Photo: Cheng Wei Kuong © Tehcnhing Hsieh. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly, New York.
Time Clock Piece (1980-1981) is the second of Hsieh’s five One Year Performances, in which he used long durations to make art in a context simultaneous with life. ‘It’s really recognised as one of the most important pieces of durational performance that has been created,’ said Carriageworks Director Lisa Havilah.
Every hour on the hour, twenty-four hours a day, for one year, Hsieh punched a time clock. At each punch a movie camera shot a single frame. When edited together one day was condensed into one second and one year reduced to around six minutes.
The performance was undertaken to show time passing in pure form, stripped bare from additional context. To highlight the passage of time Hsieh shaved his head in the beginning and let it grow out over the year.
The Carriageworks incantation of Time Clock Piece will include photographs, film, time cards, and statements from the artist, all created over the year long performance.
Hsieh’s four other One Year Performances were equally intensive. There was a cage piece, where Hsieh spent an entire year locked inside a cage; an outdoor piece, where Hsieh stayed out of doors for a whole year; an art/life piece where he was tied together for a year with then-stranger Linda Montano via an 8-foot rope; and a final piece with no documentation where Hsieh did not make or engage with art for an entire year.
Through these performances Hsieh raised questions about isolation through confinement and openness, as well as intimacy, and the experience of art.
Taiwanese-born Hsieh became an acclaimed name in the New York art scene as a result of these one year durational performances. Despite this success, Hsieh took a drastic turn away from the art scene in his next project.
This follow up performance was framed as a thirteen-year plan in which Hsieh made art in secret. At the turn of the millennium he revealed his purpose, which was to keep himself alive.
Since released from his long-term private performance Hsieh has once more stepped into the public realm, exhibiting work through North and South America, Asia and Europe.
The presentation of Time Clock Piece at Carriageworks will be the first time a major work of Tehching Hsieh has been shown in Australia. The artist will be flying in to represent the work.
‘He’s actually going to come and give a talk about that work, which is extraordinary because it’s the first time he’s ever presented a major work in Australia and the first time that he’s spoken publically about his work in Australia,’ said Havilah.
Remaining one of the world’s most internationally recognised and relevant pieces of duration art, One Clock Piece is a timeless artwork not to be missed.
Time Clock Piece will be exhibited at Carriageworks from 29 April – 6 July 2014, 10am–6pm.
Tehching Hsieh will be in conversation with curator Lee Weng Choy at 6pm on 30 April at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. This event is free, but bookings are essential due to limited audience capacity.
