Performing Bodies

Sammy Keane
Cindy Rehm
Advanced Life Drawing
3 November 2018 

Performing Bodies Project

For this project, I chose to draw and write about Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh. These two performance artists collaborated and tied themselves together at the length of an eight-foot rope for one year, from 1983 to 1984. I came across this piece when reading the packet "Performance Art", written by Kristine Stiles, earlier this week. I was fascinated with this piece in particular because it was, and still is, something I could never imagine doing. Most performance pieces I have seen or learned about usually only last a day or even a few hours, so this piece was rather shocking to me. After doing further research I learned more about them as individual and collaborative artists. "Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Taiwan) is a NewYork-based performance artist whose career involved a continuous series of long durational performances. Art became for the artist a way of life, completely integrated in his daily routines" (culture trip). "Linda Montano is a seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art and her work since the mid-1960s has been critical in the development of video by, for, and about women" (lindamontano). I found these two are both powerful and influential artists who would (and did) obviously go to great lengths to prove a point in not only the art world but in society itself. 

While looking on the internet about this performance piece, I found many possibly images that I could attempt to depict. I came across a photo of them both simply going on with their day, looking as if they are doing work or bills, sitting back to back. I was most interested in this photo because they seemed natural, as if they were not even tied to one another. The photo I chose to draw is placed below.

The role of Montano's and Hsieh's bodies in this photograph seem simply natural. If the rope tied around their waists was removed, it would look like they were working in any other office. It is not only shocking that they were able to spend an entire year at an 8-foot length, but it is also somewhat comforting to me. When learning about this piece, I was inspired and my imagination began to wonder about what other seemingly 'impossible' things could artists do. I think the bodies in this photo, and throughout the year, are neutral bodies rather than charged. The overall goal was to go on with their daily life. As I stated above, my personal reaction to this piece was basically disbelief. A year is a long time and I just could not stop thinking about moments such as sleeping, using the restroom, and even sitting at a table with another person for that long. Montano and Hsieh's performance pieces usually concentrated on the problems with duration, this one specifically.

Below are images I referenced when creating my drawing.

Photo Links

https://frieze.com/article/live-work
https://www.google.com/search?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/old-man-reading-1882-vincent-van-gogh.html
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/illustrations/old-man-sitting-in-chair-drawing
http://carolynchenart.com/sketches.html