DHC/ART presents DHC SESSION Living Time: Tehching Hsieh and Guido van der Werve
October 16 - November 22, 2009
DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, is pleased to present DHC SESSION, a new compact autumn programming initiative comprising an exhibition, evening event series, in-gallery reading lounge and education projects. The curatorial focus is on presenting artworks and events within an annually changing and pedagogical framework that offers various paths for reflection and research on the work of artists, and is designed for visitors who want to make further explorations into contemporary art.
The inaugural DHC SESSION exhibition, Living Time, brings together selected documentation of renowned Taiwanese-American performance artist Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performances and the films of young Dutch artist, Guido van der Werve. Time used as a material by both artists provides a vast thematic space in which they explore how time is felt and experienced and its role as the linchpin of human existence. Living Time is the Canadian premiere for Tehching’s Hsieh’s documentation and the works of Guido van der Werve.
Living Time presents a selection of documentation from two of Tehching Hsieh’s life and art-melding One Year Performances. In One Year Performance 1980-1981, the artist, dressed in a pale grey worker uniform, punches a time clock in his studio every hour on the hour for one year. For One Year Performance 1981- 1982, Tehching Hsieh lives outside for one year in New York City. The documentation presented in Living Time includes photographs, paper documents and films. Tehching Hsieh was born in 1950 in Nan-Chou, Taiwan and currently lives in Brooklyn. Beginning in the late seventies, Tehching Hsieh made five One Year Performances and one thirteen-year plan. The singularity of mission and endurance required in the performances heralded a radical approach to contemporary art. His performances achieved critical acclaim during this period. With his last two performances he retreated from the art world. His meticulous film, photographic and paper documentation of his performances has been presented internationally since 2000. Extensive installations of his documentation were presented at the MoMA and Guggenheim, New York in 2009. Website: www.one-year-performance.com
The exhibition also includes two films by Guido van der Werve. In nummer acht : everything is going to be alright (2007), the artist films himself walking slowly across the ice-covered Bothnian Gulf of Finland followed by an enormous icebreaker. And in nummer negen, : the day I didn’t turn with the world (2007), the time-lapse photography shows the artist standing at the North Pole for 24 hours and turning against time. Born in Papendracht, Netherlands in 1977 and now a resident of New York, NY, Guido van der Werve pursued studies in industrial design, archaeology, music composition and Russian language and literature at several universities in the Netherlands before creating his first video-documented performances around 2000. Since that time he has created a variety of works, including a series of films and videos and a musical composition titled by number in chronological order two to twelve. He has had recent solo exhibitions at La Maison Rouge, Paris and the Kunsthalle, Basel. He recently presented his new work, nummer twaalf (2009) at the MoMA, New York and will participate in Performa 09. Website: www.roofvogel.org
TOP IMAGE: Guido van der Werve, nummer negen, the day I didn't turn with the world, 8'48" time-lapse photography
to HD video, the Geopgraphic North Pole 2007. Image by Ben Geraerts
BOTTOM IMAGE: Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance 1981-1982, Life Image. Photograph by Tehching Hsieh. © 1982 Tehching Hsieh, New York
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