On the MTR ride to Joe Foti’s exhibition at JPS Gallery, I mentally prepared for the worst. When I was in the office, I looked through images of what to expect, and I was confronted with a clear penis paper weight with a purple lollipop and a jumble of figurines encased inside. I scrolled a little more, and there was a female figurine lying in a birdhouse, its hands bound by rope, legs spread, and expression pained. Oh God, what had I agreed to see?
Without much thought, I categorised these artworks as ‘weird’ and ‘provocative’, categorising them as the creations of someone with nothing more than a perverse mind. Later, I learned that I was wrong. After the interview, I left with hope, and unexpectedly, I also met his wife, Mayumi Foti, who turned out to have a bigger influence on this exhibition than I had ever imagined.
The Souveniers, Novelties, Patry Tricks Exhibition at JPS Gallery showcased more than 180 pieces of mindboggling artwork. There was a constellation of 20 birdhouses housing female figurines barely clothed. These were inspired by the rundown countryside shacks that transformed into underground booze-and-burlesque clubs. There were also countless mixed-media dioramas titled “Peek into Foti’s Brain (If You Dare)”. These works were formed with the most eclectic of trinkets, including mini Namalu-esque human figurines, a mini avocado, and, of course, a lot of Chrome Hearts motifs.
Joining Chrome Hearts at its inception in 1990, Foti is most known for creating 12 characters that each have elaborate backstories and legions of fans. Since creating these characters, they have evolved into rings, bracelets, and numerous merchandise items. However, its success was a complete surprise.
Photo: inxpi. Courtesy of the artist and JPS Gallery
“They were made during an exhibition to sort of dress up the show and people started inquiring about these pieces,” Foti harks back to their first exhibition more than 20 years ago, “And luckily my friend and the owner of Chrome Hearts was there and I said, Richard, what should I sell these for? People want these. And he looked at it and he said, You know what? Don’t sell any of these. Let’s take ’em back to California and I’ll cast them in silver.”
Two decades since that conversation, a 2-meter silver figure stood tall in the Hong Kong exhibition. Stationed below the birdhouses in the middle of the gallery, Skippy, a “lovestruck pool hustler” wore its signature sailor shirt and pleated skirt with its hands crossed behind its back. It was a silver skull figure bearing its teeth, and yet there wasn’t the slightest eeriness to its character. At the same time, I couldn’t help but notice that someone else was wearing the same nearby.
On the day of my visit, Mayumi Foti also wore a long pleated skirt, but unlike Skippy, her jet black hair flowed to her hip. She wore black platform wallabee-esque shoes with neon red socks, which matched the neon red of Joe’s nails. Her pale complexion accentuated her glowing black eyes, which always seemed to greet you with a smile.
Joe and Mayumi met when Mayumi interned at the Chrome Hearts factory after visiting with a few friends. Three days after they met, they started making art together. Three months later, they got married.
Joe quickly joked that he doesn’t recommend it, but time has proven that they are inseparable. “We’ve been married 28 years, and we’ve only been apart for five days”, Joe said. “We work together, live together, drive to work together, and go home together. That’s how connected we are.”
“Mayumi’s my weird muse,” Joe smiled as he continued, “Sometimes she sees a really weird piece and she’s laughing and I’m like, you know you’re the muse to this, right?”
But Mayumi is as much a muse as a collaborator. The two tend to visit flea markets and antique stores when they travel and find little pieces of art—things like toys and soldier figurines—to bring home. They’ll have everything laid out in their kitchen and rearrange them to make a marriage out of everything they’ve collected. Sometimes she paints the canvas, or sometimes they pour the resin together. When we walked around the exhibition, Mayumi pointed at the silver trays in the “T Series” and said she cut every paper clipping for these collages, too.
Having done almost 5,000 pieces of work together, Joe is often burnt out with ideas, but Mayumi is great at starting a canvas, which Joe will then complete. Their different strengths complement not just the way they design, but also how they navigate life. When Mayumi said she wasn’t nervous for the exhibition opening, Joe beamed, “Mayumi is so strong like that. She never feels nervous. That’s why she’s good for me.”
And despite not fully comprehending each other’s languages, they make it work. “I used to always tell Mayumi, I’m really funny in my own language, you know,” Joe laughed. When asked about three words to describe his humour, which is a prominent element in all his artworks, Mayumi said it’s “dark”, “sick”, and “fun”. The next day, when I went back on opening day, she added “innocent” too.
“What I really would love for them [the audience] to do is go, Oh my God, what is that? I like the shocking element,” Foti said about the artwork, “I don’t want to gross anybody out and I don’t want to offend anybody, maybe a little bit, but I always say my best compliment is, what the fuck is that?”
The word “weird” came up a lot in the interview: When Joe described the titles he comes up with (naming works is his favourite part of the process), experiences going to Catholic school, places that his work has ended up, Mayumi’s humour, and the two of them being weirdos in their families who finally found each other. The same word is applied to the people who appreciate his work.
“The people who like our stuff. I always think they’re kind of a little bit weird and tweaked, you know? And I like that there are other people out there like us,” Joe said.
On opening night, the room was dripped out in people donning Chrome Hearts apparel and accessories, the likes of cross patch jeans and Chrome Hearts Mikimoto Akoyo pearl necklaces with a cross pendant. Those who are fans are committed to the aesthetic, and perhaps they felt that Foti’s art reached out and heartened the part of themselves that they ever thought was weird.
Photo: inxpi. Courtesy of the artist and JPS Gallery
In a few days, Joe Foti’s gloriously bizarre world lands in Tokyo and this time, Mayumi gets her own space in the spotlight. Titled “★LOOGAMBI★” after Mayumi’s favourite nickname Joe gave her (she has 25, and they say this one sounds Italian), Mayumi’s solo exhibition features one-of-a-kind digital art prints featuring familiar faces from the Foti universe. Together, Joe will exhibit “Postcards From The Future” to mark their first-ever duo solo exhibition.
The Foti universe has never been a world of one; rather, the weirdly wonderful creation of two. “I’ve always said she’s [Mayumi] one of my favourite artists,” Joe professed,“And if you look at the back of every single piece of art that I’ve done in the last 15 years, there’s an orange or pink fluorescent dot. That’s her signature.”
It’s Mayumi’s time to make her mark on the world.
Editor
Karrie Lam
