Art
Awakening/Getty
The artist who spent a year in a wooden cage
Tehching Hsieh is perhaps “the most extreme performance artist ever”, says Sinéad Gleeson in The Guardian. For his first foray into the medium, Jump (1973), the Taiwanese-American leapt from a second-floor window and broke both his ankles. He later spent a whole year in an 11ft x 9ft wooden cage, forbidden from speaking, reading or consuming any media (a friend would drop by every day to deliver food and remove his waste). Just seven months later, he began Time Clock Piece, which required him to punch a factory-style clock-in machine in his studio, “every hour of each day for 365 days”. For another year-long project, he spent the entire 12 months tied to fellow artist Linda Montano by an eight-foot rope.
Though he refuses to name his masterpiece – he compares it to “being asked about a favourite child” – his most gruelling undertaking was surely One-Year Performance 1981-82. For this, he spent an entire year living outside, washing in the Hudson River, sleeping in car parks and carrying his rucksack through heavy snow during the coldest New York winter of that century. Arrested at one point for vagrancy, he had to shout and beg not to be taken inside. Now 75, Hsieh says the work isn’t about masochism or pain. It’s about the passing of time. “That’s all life is,” he says, “and it’s the one thing that makes us all equal.”
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As 2026 begins, several themes feel recognisable. The geopolitical turbulence that defined 2025 hasn’t faded, and diversification remains front of mind as investors look beyond the dominance of US tech. Artificial Intelligence continues to be a major force that investors can’t ignore. Even so, the coming year is likely to bring its own distinct shifts. Capital at risk. Read more.
Property
THE FASHION FLAT This two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was built for the fashion designer Giorgio Armani before he died, says House & Garden. Set within the 12-storey “Giorgio Armani Residences”, which contains multiple apartments, a restaurant, a gym and a library, the property has a large living room with 8ft-tall windows, a corner kitchen and dining room, a primary suite with a bathroom and sizeable walk-in wardrobe, and a second bedroom, also with its own bathroom. Central Park is a four-minute walk. $9.95m. Click on the image to see more.
What you’re missing
Irrelevant, apparently. Getty
This week, the wonks at Defra made a worrying announcement. The countryside, they said, was “too white” and risked becoming “irrelevant”. Exactly why the dramatic majesty of Scafell Pike, say, or the sublime contours of Stourhead should be trying to keep up with the zeitgeist is not specified. Possibly the bureaucrats think Bodmin should be more “Brat” or that there’s a missed opportunity to get #NorthNorfolkCore trending on TikTok.
In the rest of today’s email, we have Douglas Murray’s inimitable takedown of this Defra madness, along with pieces on how New Labour stripped the morals out of politics and the mad Hungarian who homeschooled his three daughters and taught them only – only – chess.
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