But Tehching didn\u2019t only want to draw attention to the nature of time, he wanted to dissect the way humans refer to time, the way we perceive it, understand it and frame it. The artist often describes his work with the well trodden euphemism of \u2018wasting time\u2019, playing on the idea that most people would likely view his performance as such. But, one key caveat is important for him \u2013 if one were to add financial gain into the situation, it would likely be a different story. To reiterate his point, Tehching refers back to his second One Year Performance, Time Clock Piece, which involved him punching a time clock for every hour, for a year. \u201cWhen I punched sheets every hour, it\u2019s something that you might do for your job \u2013 I just didn\u2019t get paid to do it,\u201d says Tehching. \u201cBut if, for example, you punch it for every hour of every day and get paid one million dollars, of course then, you\u2019re not wasting time. You\u2019re making money.\u201d He continues: \u201cNobody wants to be \u2018wasting time\u2019, and I let that become my concept. Passing time, doing time and wasting time.\u201d<\/p>\n
What makes this act even more absurd, Tehching realises, is that he didn\u2019t really have any money in the first place. He was, as he refers to himself, an \u201cillegal\u201d, who\u2019d come to New York from Taiwan and saved enough money to do his first performance working odd jobs like pot washing. \u201cI wasn\u2019t a rich artist, I was a poor artist,\u201d he says. \u201cFor a year I didn\u2019t have a job! I was living and not making money. That was expensive.\u201d While expressly avoiding wanting to make his work \u2018political\u2019 \u2013 instead leaving interpretation up to his audience \u2013 it\u2019s hard to escape the fact that Tehching\u2019s work can be seen as a firm denouncement of capitalism, and a clear (be it extreme) example of the fact we deem time spent as worthwhile if it has a fiscal number attached to it. Here, even think about the term, \u2018time spent\u2019.<\/p>\n
While, as you\u2019ve just read, interpretations can be made of Tehching\u2019s work, there\u2019s something to be said for how little we truly know about Tehching\u2019s true \u2018reasoning\u2019 behind the works (if there is one), what they \u2018represent\u2019, or, how he felt when performing. He\u2019s not interested in translating the why or the how \u2013 he\u2019s always been vocal about not wanting to delve into his concept. Instead, he says: \u201cI make people think, but people don\u2019t need to know what I\u2019m thinking.\u201d And, quite frankly, he\u2019s not too precious about what people might think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But Tehching didn\u2019t only want to draw attention to the nature of time, he wanted to dissect the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-197724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}