Tehching Hsieh: One Year Performance 1978–1979

On 30 September 1978, Tehching Hsieh began the first in a series of extraordinary One Year Performances that would make him a regular name in the New York art scene. He sealed himself in a purpose-built cage in his studio and remained there in solitary confinement without any communication for 365 days. His friend, Cheng Wei Kuong, helped facilitate the work by taking care of his food, clothing and refuse, and by taking the daily portraits which make up this book.

This work, ‘One Year Performance 1978-1979’ (‘Cage Piece’), was unprecedented in its use of physical difficulty over extreme durations. As well as being in solitary confinement, Hsieh’s self-imposed list of rules forbade him from reading, writing, listening to the radio or watching television. The artist opened his studio to a public audience on 19 days out of 365, but even on these days he remained unresponsive and avoided eye contact. The strict rules of the work piled deprivation on deprivation, consigning him to a life of unadulterated and unarticulated thought.