Interview with Jocelyn Foye
On 3rd August 2012
(Follow UP with Joycelyn Foye, participant, at Perform Chinatown 2012)
Jocelyn Foye (last name rhymes with BOY!)
Driving south from Los Angeles to Long Beach, on a sunny Southern California day, hair blown by a refreshing breeze, was smooth and SURPRISE, Frau Kolb didn’t get lost this time AND she arrived punctually. Hurray!
Warm and grounded, Foye welcomed the Talkinggrid into her world. On the dining table Foye spread out the photographic prints, paper yoga-length mats, which were used in the performance in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Seeing these prints up-close, examining their rice scratched surfaces, the recognition that these “drawings,” were made by the random forces of human prostration and rice forced, scattered across the inky surface of the prints, gave an eerie sense of permanence to the performance staged and experienced, yet lingering in memory and in the random rice markings. The mats covered the table, completely in two elegant stacks. Quickly, Foye dished a living selection of answers to the basic questions one might ask about her juicy performance art practice. Fearlessly, Foye, a daring young woman whose dynamic power of personality cuts into the cake of a creative reality, providing a fresh perspective, an alternate eye, a cosmic witness to the crimes perpetuated by imperialists in an onslaught both brutal and vast, translated through artistic prowess into performances that engulf performers and spectators inside Foye’s homage to the enduring Tibetan way of life.
Foye effectively shares a slice of the experience with the public. In the case of "Erasing Tibet," that “slice,” or “take,” quivers with concern for global encroachments upon the fabric of universal experience, specifically the destructive move of imperialist China into Tibet, which she witnessed on a 2005 journey, during which she documented the vanishing reality of an ancient culture under duress. The photos she took have the centered power of photo-journalistic nostalgia. The images, tender and raw, black and white prints, depict monks in prayer, solid architectural structures, unique to the region, remote mountain landscapes; scratched by the prostrations, the prayer gestures, of performers including (in this case) Foye’s own yogic stretches, down and across the surface of the images, creating cloud-like markings, a haze of destruction, which would have “erased,” the images of Tibet IF they had continued, as is occurring in the occupied territories.
Experiencing the performance in Chinatown, motivated me to drive out of my comfort zone in quest for background, more information, on her work. The performance, I found so moving, compelling, profound, and inviting that I had to step out of my world and into another’s for insight. The performance stands in contrast to the narcissistic self-reflective hugely personal diatribes, and staged tantrums, which are confused versions of performance art and proliferate because there is a demand for DRAMA in the art world and outside it. After a few minutes in Foye’s enlightening company, I felt the highlighted the importance of her work, her perspective, and her genius in translating the ephemeral into manageable monuments of tangible action.
Next, we went to her studio space, nearby. There we turned on the video camera and began a series of interviews. I may or may not post these recordings. They were interesting and I learned a lot about the continuing work of this promising and powerful young artist, yet we were interrupted a few times and I was drenched in sweat after a while… not the best footage. Hah! However, based on what I learned about Foye’s process, I am only more intrigued and fascinated by her creative power and the likelihood of her evolution into a world-class institutionally supported performance ART purveyor, museum friendly performances designed to draw in audiences on various, “Entry points.” Indeed, the work works on various levels.
Her performances, which she directs, produces, conceives, and (often) funds with the support of various physical, material, and social net works; always from a place of respect, fueled by her keen interest in divergent and distinctive cultural phenomena. The range is wide from the POP culture of “Air Guitar Competition,” to the European favorite, “Opera Singers,” to visual splendor of “Female Roller Derby Teams,” and Japanese traditional, “Sumo Wrestlers,” Foye is interested in performance (generally) and presenting museum worthy spectacles, which are compelling to broad audiences, and not necessarily typical performance art enthusiasts. People attend her events, held in local art museums and art galleries, well within the context of contemporary art viewing, in order to experience performances: Native American dance, for example, which are not directly associated with Foye, yet her record of the performances, often on clay, other times on more rubbery gel-like material, are ART evocative of abstract expressionist’s interest in ACTION in gesture, in color, in material. They are specific works of art, which harness the moment in which action took place.
Foye's recent imprint of a vagina in a horse saddle of gel like material, SOLD … so we did not get to see it. Darn.
Years ago, she organized an air guitar competition. The salient record being the (mostly sneaker) imprints of the air guitarists shoes on a white rubbery clay flooring, the resulting work looks like classical relief in its austere complexity of mark and athletic action. In this way, Foye uses traditional materials in untraditional ways. Creating an object which art historians, architects, scientists of all stripes find intriguing and rich in information about movement, structure, and the possibility of documenting the invisible, the eternal, that which is always NEW and doesn’t change. In other words, pioneering art explorations worthy of increased critical and public attention.
© Frau Kolb 2012