Tehching Hsieh’s Lifeworks—‘Outdoor Piece’ and ‘Rope Piece’

Tehching Hsieh’s Lifeworks—‘Outdoor Piece’ and ‘Rope Piece’

This programme is exclusively available to Festival Pass and Day Pass holders. Admission is limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Tehching Hsieh is renowned for a series of works that revolutionised the conceptual, physical, aesthetic, and temporal limits of performance art. His body of work includes six performances that the artist defines as his ‘lifeworks’. For Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival 2025, Hsieh will participate in three moderated discussions held at the same time on three consecutive days. Each talk will be accompanied by images and clips and will focus on two of his ‘lifeworks’, all of which are held in the M+ Collection.

On Saturday, 31 May, Hsieh will discuss his third and fourth ‘lifeworks’: One Year Performance 1981–1982 (Outdoor Piece) and One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece).

In Outdoor Piece, Hsieh lived on the streets of New York for an entire year, refusing shelter in any buildings, tents, subways, or other modes of transport. He faced the elements armed only with a sleeping bag and a backpack filled with essentials, including clothing, maps, a camera, a radio, and a flashlight.

In Rope Piece, Hsieh tied one end of a rope to his own body and the other end to his friend, artist Linda Montano, effectively tethering them together for a year. They were required to stay within the length of the rope without touching each other.

This second discussion with Hsieh, for Tehching Hsieh’s LifeworksOutdoor Piece and Rope Piece, will be moderated by Russell Storer, M+ Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs. The conversation will take place in English.

About the Artist

Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Taiwan) is a globally respected performance artist. He approached these laborious performances with extreme rigor, setting rules and conditions for them and then following them closely for long periods of time. The first five exhibitions lasted one year each, and the sixth lasted thirteen years. Borrowing the aesthetics of administrative functions, Hsieh often incorporates elements such as legal documents into his works to emphasize the limitations he places on his art and life.

Portrait of Tehching Hsieh. © Hugo Glendinning

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Image at top: Tehching Hsieh. One Year Performance 1981–1982 (Outdoor Piece), 1981-1982, printed 2000. Photo: M+, Hong Kong, © Tehching Hsieh.