Tehching Hsieh's exhibition was my favorite that I've attended in college. His installation was very simple and incredibly powerful. It's amazing to see how dedicated he is to his work, especially when it's quantifiable in all of the pictures laid out on the walls. I could see just how much work went into the piece. The idea that really shows the power of his time clock piece was his choice to cut his hair and not cut it for the duration of the piece. This puts just how long the piece was into perspective and provides a visual reference point behind the concept. I imagine Hsieh is critiquing the mentality of capitalist industry with its nonstop work and punch in, punch out mentality.
One of the aspects I liked most was just how overwhelming the installation made the project feel. Hsieh seems inhuman in taking on this project and in turn asks if maybe the ideal worker in consumer society must be inhuman. There is a tremendous amount of authenticity in his work, he had a witness validate the time sheets and admitted the times he didn't punch in on time. The concept behind is work is strong and it's this authenticity that takes his work to another level. I thought the video was more powerful, yet the amount of pictures on the wall certainly added to the moving quality of the work. It was better to watch his hair grow as a stop motion animation than see walls of seemingly similar pictures. The thing that I noticed in the pictures that I didn't in the video was that Hsieh has a faint smile on the final day. I was very surprised an artist like Hsieh would be shown at UNR and I feel lucky to have seen his work in person. It is a testament to how much passion and dedication an artist can put into their work.
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