Currently on view at Dia Beacon is Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978–1999, the first comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the Taiwanese American artist’s durational performances. Notably, the exhibition examines work enacted over a 21-year period. During that time, Hsieh produced five One Year Performances followed by the “Thirteen Year Plan.” As a result, the presentation frames an oeuvre that collapsed boundaries between art and daily existence. Moreover, this long-term view marks a milestone by bringing together all five year-long works for the first time. Importantly, it includes “Rope Piece” and the “Thirteen Year Plan,” which have never been exhibited before.
Duration as Method
At the center of the exhibition is Hsieh’s strict commitment to duration, defined by the artist as the time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. In particular, the presentation features “Cage Piece (1978–79),” during which Hsieh lived in isolation inside a wooden cage for one year. In addition, “Time Clock Piece (1980–81)” documents his practice of punching a time clock every hour, on the hour. Consequently, these works foreground endurance as both method and meaning.
Tehching Hsieh’s Lifeworks documents 21 years of endurance-based performance art that reshaped the boundaries of time, labor, and artistic commitment. 
Tehching Hsieh’s Lifeworks documents 21 years of endurance-based performance art that reshaped the boundaries of time, labor, and artistic commitment.
Spatial Structure and Public Access
Visitors also encounter artifacts from “Outdoor Piece (1981–82),” a work Hsieh created while living on the streets of New York without shelter. Similarly, the exhibition includes materials from “Rope Piece (1983–84),” a collaboration with Linda Montano that required both artists to remain tied together by an eight-foot rope without physical contact. Meanwhile, the retrospective follows an architectural model conceived by Hsieh. Specifically, the model represents “art time,” defined as periods of performance, and the life intervals in between. The exhibition remains on long-term view at Dia Beacon, with no announced closing date.