with Mary Jane Jacob (ed.Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob, Uni of California Press 2004)
Born in Taiwan, became a Zen Buddhist.
Doesn't try to make Buddhist art, but art that is 'a sincere and honest reflection of my interior world'.
A theme in all his work is establishing trust, breaking through the protective barrier we each create around ourself. (Breached that trust with his Pregnant man project - a hoax.)
In one work, The Dining Project, at Whitney Museum in 1998, he invited by lottery someone to stay behind each day after closing hours to dine with him - he spent the day preparing the meal and the evening in conversation with his guest. 'I also think about: Can art be made out of attention itself? Can art be the attentive performance of simple actions? Can art be the manipulation of attention itself, the bringing of greater awareness to ordinary things, thereby transforming our life and our perception of present, past and future?'
In The Letter Writing Project 1999 he set up translucent spaces each with a desk for people to write letters of forgiveness which could either be hung in the booth for others to read or left for posting. Ended up with some 12,000 which he sent burnt in a ritual.
The Letter Writing Project 1999
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