The Year of the Rope: An
Interview with Linda Montano & Tehching Hsieh
By Alex Grey and Allyson
Grey
No two artists are more
central to a discussion of the Life/Art Experiment than Linda Montano
and Tehching Hsieh. For years, on opposite coasts, they had each
cordoned off whole sections of their daily lives and called them art.
When we heard that they were working together on a one-year piece, it
seemed like a natural. When we heard they had vowed to spend a whole
year in New York City tied to each other with a piece of rope, it
seemed perfect—yet hardly possible. Alex and Allyson Grey were
artists married to each other, and just as obsessively concerned with
coupling at the intersection of art and life. In June 1984, while the
Hsieh/Montano piece was still in progress, High Performance
asked the four artists to meet for a conversation about it. —Eds.
July, 1983
STATEMENT
We, LINDA MONTANO
and TEHCHING HSIEH, plan to do a one year performance.
We will stay
together for one year and never be alone. We will be in the same room
at the same time, when we are inside. We will be tied together at the
waist with an 8 foot rope. We will never touch each other during the
year.
The performance
will begin on July 4, 1983, at 6 p.m., and continue until July 4,
1984, at 6 p. m.
—Linda
Montano
—Tehching Hsieh
|
Linda
Montano and Tehching Hsieh. New York City, 1984, Photo: Alex
and Allyson Grey
|
With masterful simplicity of means, Tehching
Hsieh and Linda Montano created a year-long art epic. Each of the
artists' past works had strangely prepared them for the endurance of
the rope. The rope provided an extended and controlled shock to the
patterns of their lives. Not separate, yet not a "couple,"
the two artists' work took on layer after layer of meaning. The
reality of the rope became the symbol of relationship...the
difficulty of relationships...the inescapability of
interdependence... The rope made visible the psychic bond that exists
between any two people in close relationship and told the truth that
we are each alone yet connected.
One of the most highly
publicized works of performance art, it retains an impenetrable
privacy. No one will ever know "what it was like" but the
artists themselves. Those who have seen or heard of Tehching Hsieh
and Linda Montano's art/life performance will long remember it.
Alex and Allyson Grey: When
did you first meet and what inspired your collaboration?
Linda Montano: I was living
in a Zen Center in upstate New York. During a trip to the city I saw
one of Tehching's posters and literally heard a voice in my head that
said, "Do a one-year piece with him." I was free to do
that, so I asked Martha Wilson [of the New York art space Franklin
Furnace] for his number, called him, and we met at Printed Matter
where we talked intensely for two hours. He said that he was looking
for a person to work with...I was looking for him...so we continued
negotiating, talking and working from January to July when we started
the piece.
A&AG (to Tehching
Hsieh): So you were looking for somebody to work with before you met
Linda?
TH: Yes. I [had an] idea
about this piece and I needed to find somebody for collaboration.
After I met Linda, she told me that she had done a piece handcuffed
with Tom Marioni for three days. Somehow I feel very good about
collaboration because Linda had done something similar before.
A&AG: What inspired
your idea for the piece?
TH: You know, I've done
three performances before connecting art and life together. I like to
create art about life from different angles. Most of my work is about
struggle in life. Like in The Cage my life inside felt
isolated—that's a kind of struggle. And in [the] Punch Time
Clock piece I [did] the same thing over and over, like a
mechanical man, and that's a kind of struggle. When I lived outdoors
it was about struggle with the outside world.
I got the idea for this
piece because there are problems about communication with people. I
feel this is always my struggle. So I wanted to do one piece about
human beings and their struggle in life with each other. I find being
tied together is a very clear idea, because I feel that to survive
we're all tied up. We cannot go in life alone, without people.
Because everybody is individual we each have our own idea of
something we want to do. But we're together. So we become each
other's cage. We struggle because everybody wants to feel freedom. We
don't touch, and this helps us to be conscious that this relationship
connects individuals, but the individuals are independent. We are not
a couple, but two separate people. So this piece to me is a symbol of
life and human struggle. And why one year's time? Because then this
has real experience of time and life. To do work one week or two
weeks, I feel that it may become like just doing a performance. But I
do it one year and then the piece becomes art and life—it's real
connection and that has more power. Also a year is a symbol of things
happening over and over.
LM: I think that's what
interested me in Tehching's work; having similar interests—merging
art and life. For many years I have been framing my life and calling
it art, so that everything—washing dishes, making love, walking,
shopping, holding children—is seen as art. Formerly, I would
separate out activities—run to the studio and that was my "creative
time." Gradually I found this separation unnecessary and felt
that it was important for me to be attentive all of the time—not to
waste a second. That became the Art/Life task that I have given
myself until I die.
I made many pieces from
1969 on that experimented with this idea of allowing my life to be a
work of art. I lived with different people and called that art. I
wrote the Living Art Manifesto in 1975, and later turned my
home into a museum so that everything I did there would be framed as
art. I lived in galleries. I was sealed in a room for five days as
five different people. All of it was an attempt to make every minute
count. I knew that by working with Tehching I would experience his
time frame, one year, and that kind of art rigor interested me.
A&AG (to LM): Tehching
has talked about what the piece symbolizes to him. What does the
piece mean to you?
LM: By being tied with a
rope and not touching, I am forced to remain alert and attentive
because I am doing something different from what I ordinarily do.
That way I break down habitual patterns because the task of being
tied is so difficult and absorbing that I can only do just that.
Supposedly there are seven stimuli that can simultaneously grab our
attention every second. This piece demands that the mind pay
attention to one idea, not seven, and because being tied is
potentially dangerous, the mind gets focused or else our lives are
threatened.
Besides training the mind,
the piece raises so many emotions to the surface that the soap-opera
quality eventually gets boring. I feel as if I've dredged up ancient
rages and frustrations this year and, although I'm glad that I went
through with them, I now feel that holding any emotional state for
too long is actually an obsolete strategy. On the other hand, because
I believe that everything we do is art—fighting, eating,
sleeping—then even the negativities are raised to the dignity of
art. As a result I now feel much more comfortable with the negative.
It's all part of the same picture.
A&AG: What is a typical
day like?
LM: We have this pattern.
We go to bed around midnight, Tehching sleeps in the morning. I get
up earlier, meditate, exercise, watch TV. Then he gets up. Sometimes
we run. Three times a day we walk Betty, my dog. We take one picture
every day and turn on the tape recorder whenever one of us is
talking. Each month we switch off being responsible for either the
camera or the tape recorder. If we aren't doing carpentry, teaching
or part-time gallery work, then we go to our desks and sit
back-to-back for about five hours.
A&AG (to TH): What do
you do at your desks during the day?
TH: Thinking.
LM: We think about what we
want to do and then we talk until we come to a consensus. So it takes
many hours of sitting before we can do one thing.
A&AG: You both seem to
have different ways of thinking about the piece.
TH: Yes, because we are two
individual human beings and two individual artists tied together for
24 hours a day and so individualism is very natural to this piece.
It's interesting to me because if we want to be good human beings and
good artists at the same time, that's one kind of clash and struggle.
Also if we want a relationship and independence at the same time,
that creates a double struggle.
The piece has other levels
that make us feel more individual—there are cultural issues,
men/women issues, ego issues. Sometimes we imagine that this piece is
like Russia with America. How complicated the play of power.
LM: This piece raises many
questions. Like, how do two humans survive in such close physical
proximity? A Russian journalist wanted to do an interview with us
because she said that Soviet scientists were interested in exercises
that their astronauts could do to prepare themselves for spending
extended periods of time in space capsules. In many ways, the piece
is valuable because I feel that it is necessary to learn new survival
skills and to look at emotional conditioning and responses that are
obsolete.
A&AG: Waiting must be a
big part of the piece.
LM: We usually do a very
simple thing, efficiently, so that we don't have to bother each
other. Having 15 minutes in the bathroom is a luxury. If we are
fighting then we do only the basic things like eating and going to
the bathroom, and those things are done quickly.
A&AG: The piece
obviously has negative and positive qualities.
TH: Most artists who
collaborate want to try to be one. But we both have very different
ways to work and have different ideas. For survival we have to work
things out. This brings out a lot of negativity and fighting. It is
part of [the] piece, so I don't feel too negative. The positive, we
don't have to worry about. We just enjoy it.
LM: There are many people
in worse conditions than we are—the person tied to a bad job or a
bad place or a bad marriage. This piece is about the realities of
life. They aren't always easy. Often we would just have to sit it
out, sometimes for three weeks, until the "cloud of unknowing"
passed.
TH: Some people think I am
choosing to suffer—I don't think that I want to bring more
suffering to myself, but the work is difficult and in some ways that
brings suffering. As an artist I have a lot of pleasure [doing] my
work. If I don't get any pleasure out of doing difficult work then I
don't have to do it. I don't think I want [to] suffer for no reason.
I am not masochistic.
LM: Artists choose forms
that fit their internal image bank. Tehching has his own reasons for
his images. Mine come from the ascetic, Catholic/spiritual world. I
believe that if life is hard and I choose to do something harder,
then I can homeopathically balance the two difficulties. Snake venom
is used to cure snake bites!
A&AG: How do you feel
about not having sex for a year?
LM: Actually, I'm beginning
to reevaluate guilt, and lately have been more willing to sacrifice,
not because I'm guilty but because it's an essential attitude. I also
realize that not having sex is as interesting as having it. Besides,
touch is highly overrated. In the past, I've often grasped without
energy, charge or significance and called that touch.
TH: We do not touch. We are
sacrificing sex, not denying it. We could, in theory, have sex with
other people. But that would just be a way to try to escape. It is
not right for the piece.
LM: Once you give the mind
a command, then you watch the body carry out the process. When I went
into the convent for two years, I informed myself that I would not
have sex and noticed that the energy went to other things. This year
I have a chance to experiment with desire. Am I turned on? To whom?
When? How much? Also, since the body isn't touched, the mind is
pushed into the astral.
I believe that in the next
200 years, we will all be in outer space so why not practice
outer-space sex now by letting astral bodies merge.
A&AG: So you are using
this piece as a kind of training?
LM: Yes. One thing that
interests me very much about this piece is that a work of art can be
used to practice remaining conscious.
A&AG: Is that part of
your understanding of the piece, Tehching—training your awareness?
TH: Yes, but it is
secondary. The piece becomes a mirror showing me my weakness, my
limitations, my potentials, and trains my will.
LM: Some artists choose
difficult work. Other people do it in a celebratory way—Dionysian
ecstasy, to get free enough to be themselves and to be in the moment.
It's really a matter of choosing the style that goes with our
inclinations and then hopefully changing directions if the style
isn't working, or if those old hindrances aren't there any more. Then
we can do something else. Maybe end up on a mountain, gardening.
A&AG: Linda
mentioned before that the piece is "potentially dangerous."
How so?
TH: I do not feel that the
piece is dangerous. I have to know my limitations in a piece. So I do
a rehearsal for a week to see what happens. That's just technical
kind of help. But I don't want to do a piece that I feel is too
risky—30% risk is okay. Accidents are possible in this piece, so we
have to be very careful.
LM: For Tehching this is
not such a big issue. For me it is, because I'm not used to taking
large physical risks. Actually we were very lucky and only two
dangerous things happened. Once Tehching got into an elevator...I was
outside and the door closed. He pushed the "door open"
button before the elevator went down, but for days I had images and
nightmares of being smashed against the elevator door or else cut in
half by the rope.
Another time we were
walking in Chinatown when a woman ran between us into the rope and
almost tripped. So in that instance, the rope was dangerous for
someone else. Riding bikes, one in back of the other, was more
liberating than dangerous, but we had to be careful.
A&AG: How does this
piece go along with your spiritual outlook on life?
LM: I come from a very
strict, religious tradition and have been disciplined most of my
life. I continue with discipline, but now I am using the artist's way
to be spiritual.
TH: I have no interest in
the spiritual but I am in some ways like a monk who is dedicated in a
serious way. My dedication is to my art work. I am interested in the
philosophical and in life experience. I try to make sense of who I am
and what I am doing in my life without God. If I say I don't believe
in God maybe it means that I am trying to find my own belief.
A&AG: What are some of
the influences on your work?
TH: New York art,
Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, existentialism—that influences me. Also,
I am oriental. I grew up in Taiwan, and I have an oriental kind of
technique and oriental kind of experience, that influences me too.
Also, my mother influenced me—she is a very dedicated person.
LM: My influences have
been—my grandmother, who took out her false teeth at most family
gatherings and sang, "If I Had the Wings of an Angel"; my
mother, who is a painter; Lily Tomlin; Marcel Duchamp; Eva Hesse, and
St. Theresa of Avila.
I am also interested in
using art therapeutically, probably because when I was 20 I was
anorexic (82 lbs.) and it's only because I immersed myself in "art"
that I came out of that experience intact. So for that reason, I will
always be aware of the psychological/sociological effects of the
creative process.
A&AG: Now that you've
been tied together for almost a year, how do you feel about each
other?
TH: I think Linda is the
most honest person I've known in my life and I feel very comfortable
to talk—to share my personality with her. That's enough. I feel
that's pretty good. We had a lot of fights and I don't feel that is
negative. Anybody who was tied this way, even if they were a nice
couple, I'm sure they would fight, too. This piece is about being
like an animal, naked. We cannot hide our negative sides. We cannot
be shy. It's more than just honesty—we show our weakness.
LM: Tehching is my friend,
confidant, lover, son, opponent, husband, brother, playmate, sparring
partner, mother, father, etc. The list goes on and on. There isn't
one word or one archetype that fits. I feel very deeply for him.
A&AG: Talk more about
how your relationship progressed through this piece and how you will
face your separation.
LM: We developed four ways
of communicating. In the first phase we were verbal, talking about
six hours a day. Phase two—we started pulling on each other,
yanking on the rope. We had talked ourselves out, but yanking led to
anger. In phase three we were less physical with each other and used
gestures, so we would point when we wanted to go to the bathroom or
point to the kitchen when we wanted to eat. Phase four—we grunted,
and made audible, moaning sounds when we needed to go
somewhere...that was a signal for the other to get up and follow the
initiator. Communication went from verbal to nonverbal. It regressed
beautifully.
It was also interesting to
watch the overall energy of the piece. Eighty days before the end of
the piece, we started to act like normal people. It was almost as if
we surfaced from a submarine. Before that we were limited to doing
just the piece.
TH: Our communication was
mostly about this piece. Like, I have to ask Linda if I want a glass
of water. It takes up all of our energy.
A&AG: Your piece has
been on the newswire. You've had a tremendous amount of media
attention nationally. How do you feel about the publicity?
TH: I have positive and
negative feelings. Negative is that I don't really like that kind of
publicity. But I would like for people to know. The problem is that
they are more interested in the life issues and don't understand art.
That bothers me. But I feel positive that people who know about it
feel something even if they don't know about art. For example,
mothers with young children often say to us, "You know, I've
been tied to my baby for two years." That means she understands
in some way.
LM: Pregnant women also
respond because we are making the umbilical cord visible. We also get
responses from policemen, feminists, religious people, S & M
practitioners, people walking dogs...the image evokes many
projections.
Actually the publicity has
won over my father...He is a businessman and read about it in the
Wall Street Journal, so now he's much more supportive of my
work.
And being deluged by the
media has helped me come to a new understanding of documentation. It
seems that the primary document is the change inside the performer
and audience. The results are felt and cannot always be photographed
or expressed.
A&AG: How does it feel
to have the piece nearing an end?
LM: We're so much easier on
each other now that it's almost over, and there is a nostalgia that
we couldn't have been this way earlier. But I've learned a good
lesson...to give 100% all the time. Usually in relationships I have
thought, "I'll open up tomorrow," or "I'll communicate
tomorrow." Now I realize that life is short, and it's ridiculous
to waste time.
I also feel a sadness that
Tehching and I won't be doing an 80-year piece together...maybe we'll
do it from a distance.
TH: On a philosophical
level, I feel that the piece is not nearing an end. It's just that we
are tied to each other psychologically. When we die it ends. Until
then we are all tied up.
This interview originally
appeared in High Performance magazine, Fall 1984.
Original CAN/API
publication: September 2002
