We are delighted to announce the first event of the History of Art Research Seminar Programme for academic year 2022/23, which will a host series of live and online events.

Our first seminar will be with the acclaimed international Taiwanese Artist Tehching Hsieh, on Wednesday 21^st September @ 17:15 with at talk titled TEHCHING HSIEH LIFEWORKS 1978-1999, chaired by Dr Chia-Ling Yang, Edinburgh University. This event can be attended in person and via Zoom live streaming, see details below, and is generously supported by Spotlight Taiwan 2022 Project

Tehching Hsieh was born in 1950 in Nan-Chou, Taiwan. Hsieh dropped out from high school in 1967 and took up painting. After finished compulsory military service (1970 – 73), Hsieh had his first solo show at the gallery of the American News Bureau in Taiwan. Shortly after, Hsieh stopped painting. Hsieh made a performance action, Jump, in which he broke both of his ankles. Hsieh trained as a seaman, which he then used as a means to enter the United States. In July, 1974, Hsieh arrived at a small port near Philadelphia. He was an illegal immigrant in the States for fourteen years until granted amnesty in 1988.

Starting in the late 1970s, Hsieh made five One Year Performances and a ‘Thirteen Year Plan’, inside and outside his studio in New York City. Using long durations, making art and life simultaneous, Hsieh achieved one of the most radical approaches in contemporary art. The first four One Year Performances made Hsieh a regular name in the art scene in New York; the last two pieces, intentionally retreating from the art world, set a tone of sustained invisibility. Since the millennium, released from the restriction of not showing his works during a thirteen-year period, Hsieh has exhibited his work in North and South America, Asia and Europe. His recent exhibitions Doing Time was presented by Taiwan Pavilion at 57th Venice Art Biennale 2017, One Year Performance 1980-1981 was exhibited at Tate Modern, London, in 2017-2018, and MoMa and the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 2009.

Tehching Hsieh lives in Brooklyn, New York.

My performance work shows different perspectives of thinking about life, but these perspectives are all based on the same precondition:

Life is a life sentence

Life is passing time

Life is freethinking

In person attendance venue:

Edinburgh College of Art, Hunter Lecture Theatre, 74 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh EH3 9DF

Zoom joining instructions:

Join Zoom Meeting https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87449078994

Meeting ID: 874 4907 8994

Passcode: Spotlight3