Tehching Hsieh

I am researching Tehching Hsieh. When I took Thrasher’s 2000 class I learned about Hsieh’s work, particularly his piece with Linda Montano. For one year the two artists were tied together by an eight-foot rope. They weren’t allowed to touch each other throughout the duration of the piece. The artist statement they both provided before and after was amazing, because it really showed how much the two grew together over the course of the year. At first they had fights; they didn’t always get along. But in the end, both had an enormous amount of respect and admiration for the other. Hsieh even made the statement that even after the rope comes off, they will still always have an emotional connection, an invisible rope, binding their lives together. This really attracted me to Hsieh’s work because while outsiders might see his pieces as a sort of punishment or quest to torture himself, but I believe there are deeper meanings behind each piece. Since the timeline for each of his pieces is so long, his meaning and purpose for doing the piece grows over the course of the year and allows him to really develop his idea, even if it is just through simple actions like punching a time clock or being in a cage. Since my timeline to complete my piece is much shorter than Hsieh’s I find myself at a standstill. Many of Hsieh’s pieces put him in harsh conditions, such as the cage, living outside, or being tied next to another person. My idea for a piece would take longer than the time period given to see any real progress. I originally thought about limiting what I eat each day to one can of chick peas and drinking only water, monitoring my weight, but I don’t think I would have enough time to see results. Because of work I can’t do a piece that would require me to be in a cage or outside for 24 hours.