Laura Davis meets two of the Liverpool Biennial artists whose work is an endurance test

WHEN you read about Damien Hirst making £95m in a single auction, it’s hard to believe the old adage of suffering artists still applies.

Yet this year’s Liverpool Biennial features the work of two who are prepared to go to extreme lengths in their creations.

Taiwanese-born Tehching Hsieh set the bar pretty high when he had himself locked in a cage for a year, in the first in a series of five 12-month-long performance pieces.

From September 29, 1978, to September 30, 1979, he lived behind wooden bars, with only with a sink, lights, a pail instead of a toilet and a single bed.

Forbidden from talking, reading, writing, listening to the radio and watching TV, he could only sit in silent contemplation while a friend popped in once a day to bring him food and, 19 times during the year, a stream of visitors came in to gawp.

In 1980, Hsieh set himself the task of punching a time clock attached to the wall of his apartment on the hour, every hour, for a year.

The physical restrictions, which after living in a cage seemed generous, were nothing compared to the sleep deprivation he suffered by forcing himself to wake up once an hour during the night to punch the timecard.

“It was restricting in a different way from the Cage Piece,” explains Hsieh.

“That was a restriction of my space, but Time Clock Piece was a restriction on my time. But I was committed to doing the piece, so it wasn’t a sacrifice.”

The documentation of this particular work forms his exhibition at FACT, where the walls of an entire gallery are covered in photographic self- portraits taken each hour. He shaved his head before beginning Time Clock Piece.

“I was not perfect,” he reveals. “I only managed to be 94% accurate.”