The Museum of Modern Art is featuring a small exhibition of Tehching Hsieh’s performance art. The exhibit’s focus is on the very first of Hsieh’s “One Year Performances”, entitled “Cage Piece” which involved him spending an entire year in near-solitary confinement in a cell-like cage doing absolutely nothing.
This is the inaugural installation in an ongoing series that will bring performance documentation, original performance pieces, and live reenactments of historic performances to various locations throughout the Museum. The first artist to be spotlighted is Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Taiwan), who is best known for his five One Year Performances: between 1978 and 1986, the artist spent one year locked inside a cage, one year punching a time clock every hour, one year completely outdoors, one year tied to another person, and, lastly, one year without making, viewing, discussing, reading about, or in any other way participating in art. Hsieh’s final performance piece, Thirteen Year Plan, was completed in 1999 after a process lasting thirteen years. This exhibition focuses on the artist’s earliest performance, commonly called his Cage Piece (1978–79), with 365 photographs meticulously documenting the daily passing of time.
The show runs until May 18, 2009.
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