Hunger Artists

[David Blaine fasting for 44 days in London in 2003 (Getty Images)]

“And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” (Exodus 34:28)

That’s Moses, not Malone, with his career averages of 20.6 points, 12.2 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game. Jesus Christ! is right. I spent my entire boyhood wishing I was black. How do you even sleep at night, Moses, knowing you were God?

Not stuffing yourself with junk clears the mind. Deprivation breeds wisdom. Hanging with your betters can’t hurt. Many of them are insufferable, though. I’d rather chill with schmucks.

In 1880, Dr. Henry Tanner’s hair turned completely white after fasting in public for 40 days. Isn’t that like praying in public? “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.” (Matthew 6:5). Tanner’s exploit earned him beaucoup bucks and fame. He’d travel the country to preach the virtue of not eating.

Tanner’s inspiration was Mollie Fancher, most famous of the Victorian “fasting girls.” After a street car accident, she lost the abilities to see, feel, taste and smell, but could go without food for up to twelve years, so she claimed. Blind, she could sometimes see through her forehead, the top of her head seemingly on fire, light pouring into it. Contemporaries said she could read letters through sealed envelopes, witness distant or future events.

If blindness was clairvoyance, most of us would be prophets, not Beavises and Buttheads.

In 1888, copycat John Zachar of Wisconsin went 53 days sans victuals. The race was on. The record was set by a German in 1953. Associated Press:

Willy Schmitz ended a fast of 79 days and three hours by sipping champagne last night and claimed a new world record.

The professional hunger artist was thin and pale, but smiling, as police broke the seal on his glass cage while a Bavarian band played loudly and hundreds of spectators crowded to watch.

Schmitz, who bills himself as “Heros the Hungerer,” claimed he ate nothing and drank only mineral water during the 78 days he was sealed in his cage. He smoked cigarets to dull his appetite.

Coming so soon after the mass starvation of WWII, it wasn’t in great taste, but nothing beats David Blaine’s London stunt of 2003. Suspended in a plexiglass box near Tower Bridge, Blaine fasted for 44 days. His inspirations, I kid you not, were Primo Levi and Bobby Sands. Auschwitz survivor Levi wrote If This Is a Man and committed suicide in 1987 at age 67. Jailed by the Brits, Sands died at age 26 after a 66-day hunger strike.

Blaine also mentioned Kafka’s 1922 story, “The Hunger Artist.” Blaine’s self absorption was epic. Prior to his lucrative stunt, Blaine babbled all this:

I consider it a piece of performance art, and I also consider it something that for me is like the ultimate truth.

When you live with nothing, there’s no distractions. You’re just there as you are, struggling. I think that’s the purest state you can be in.

I love the idea of death and I hate life, so these stunts really make me feel great. And I love making people watch suffering because I had to watch it my whole life—watch people I loved and were close to deteriorate and die.

I saw everybody I knew, my mother, my father, drop dead. I feel the most alive when I’m going through these experiences.

I’m an artist—nothing more, nothing less. I don’t fear life and I don’t fear death.

Done, Blaine emerged half naked and in tears, shouting, “I love you all!” Then, “This has been one of the most important experiences in my life. I have learned more in that box than I have in years.”

With more historical perspective, the Brits were far from impressed. They had pelted his box with eggs. Men mooned, women flashed. They banged on drums, played loud music, staged barbecues and even detonated explosives. Dangling a cheeseburger, a toy helicopter hovered near Blaine’s face. Someone drove golf balls at the narcissistic freak.

By 2003, people were much more interested in cheering on gluttony. Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest was on ESPN, a sport station. From Nathan’s website on 10/9/24:

Legend has it that on July 4, 1916, four immigrants gathered at the very first Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand in Coney Island and made eating contest history. As the story goes, they were competing to see who was the most patriotic. How did they determine the winner? With a hot dog-eating contest, of course!

This fib was fabricated by Morty Matz around 1972. Like Moses fasting for 40 days or six million Jews gassed during the Holocaust, it’s very useful as publicity, so let’s just keep it.

Why would anyone watch such disgusting spectacles? They invert dining etiquette. Pissing contests in lieu of presidential debates would be more interesting. Kamala, it’s your turn. Donald, you can zip up for now.

To consume way more than your share is to flaunt your wealth. To swallow is also to dominate and conquer. What’s the point of being rich if you can’t eat more and, by extension, turn more into shit?

Hot dogs ain’t ish. With 4.5% of the world’s population, Americans burn 24% of its petroleum. That’s twice per capita as the Japanese, six times the Mexicans, 13 times the Chinese and 370 times the Ethiopians. Did you expect anything less? True blue Americans should demand 99.99% of every resource.

On 6/10/24, that great statesman Lindsey Graham spelled it out on television, “They’re sitting on 10 to 12 trillion dollars of critical minerals in Ukraine. I don’t want to give that money to Putin to share with China. If we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of.” There’s also this joke, “Why are these Arabs sitting on our oil?”

Joey “Jaws” Chesnut is famous for scarfing, during single sessions, 45 pizza slices, 103 burgers, 7.5 lbs of Buffalo wings, 47 grilled cheese sandwiches, 78 matzo balls or 66 hot dogs. The New York-based International Federation of Competitive Eating proclaims Chesnut “truly an American hero and a national treasure.”

Nicholas Wood (c.1585-1630) was dubbed the Great Eater of Kent. His contemporary, John Taylor, said Wood was no less than Alexander the Great, Tamerlane, Charlemagne or King Arthur, etc., “Surely eating is not a greater sin than raping, theft, manslaughter and murder. Therefore this noble Eatalian does deserve the title of Great.”

Now, finally, we can marvel at a most remarkable American. Born in Taiwan, Tehching Hsieh was a 23-year-old administrator on an Iranian oil tanker when it docked in Philly in 1974. Jumping ship, Hsieh paid $150 for a taxi ride to NYC, where he’s lived ever since. His first four years, Hsieh worked as a busboy in Chinatown. NYC had just one! Now, there are nine, or twelve if you count Long Island and New Jersey, just across the Hudson.

No art form is filled with more charlatans than performance art. Hsieh, though, is cultural giant. Here are his masterpieces:

1) Cage Piece, 1978–79. Hsieh spent an entire year in a 11 1/2 x 9 x 8 cell without talking, reading, writing, watching television or listening to music. An assistant provided his food and removed his waste.

Illegal, Hsieh stayed out of sight, thus “safe,” yet he had announced his whereabouts through public posters. Hsieh had arrested himself. Like other prisoners, he marked each day by scratching a wall. This Taiwanese had escaped all the way to the US only to remove himself from it. Outside his cage, Hsieh felt surrounded by wolves, he said, “I could feel the sense of survival, an aggression in everyone.”

2) Time Piece, 1980–81. A near perfect employee, Hsieh wore a uniform and punched a time clock on the hour, every hour, for an entire year. Of 8,760 hours, he missed just 134, due to sleep.

On call 24 hours a day, Hsieh merely mimicked being employed. Hsieh also parodied the stereotype of the super hungry and insanely industrious first generation immigrant.

3) Outdoor Piece, 1981–82. Hsieh entered no building for an entire year. The lone exception were the 15 hours he spent at a police precinct after a fight with another homeless man.

As an illegal alien, Hsieh was already “homeless,” but your average homeless knows where to go to use the toilet or escape the cold. In NYC, it’s easy enough to jump the turnstile so you can sleep all night on the subway. Penn Station and the Port Authority are filled with the homeless. They also doze off at NYC’s 90 public libraries. Hsieh, though, was entirely without an asylum, if only for an hour.

Always wandering outside, Hsieh became a permanent part of the landscape. He assimilated himself, most literally, into NYC.

4) Art/Life, 1983–84. With an eight foot rope, Hsieh is tied to Linda Montano for an entire year, but they must not touch. Hsieh’s pairing with Montano was real enough, yet pointless. He did yet didn’t get his American woman. Starting as slight acquaintances, Hsieh and Montano grew to hate each other. They could only hear each other’s orifices. This couple endured all the annoyances of a relationship without any benefit. More awkward than a fake wedding, it didn’t even give Hsieh a green card. Perversely, all their conversations were recorded, on the condition they’re never heard. Montano even claimed this piece’s idea was hers.

Though none of these performances involves food, Hsieh is the ultimate hunger artist. With an uncanny knack for paradoxes, Hsieh repeatedly gravitated towards the fringe, hung out at the bottom, suspended himself between impossibilities. Like Melville or Kafka, Hsieh knows how to invest refusal with meaning. I can’t think of a more representative American artist for our time.

[Tehching Hsieh’s Cage Piece, 1978–79]

[Tehching Hsieh’s Time Piece, 1980–81]

[Tehching Hsieh’s Outdoor Piece, 1981–82]

[Tehching Hsieh’s Art/Life, 1983–84]