Get to Know Philippine Dancer Eisa Jocson, Winner of the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award
Created in 2013 by the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award honours emerging Asian artists, especially those who are only at the beginning of their art practices. On November 6th, for its fourth edition, the jury – a mix of museum directors, curators and art critics – chose the Philippine dancer Eisa Jocson.
The prize? 300,000 yuan... or 38,700 euros to be precise. This year, the Taiwanese artist Hsu Che-Yu, the Chinese artist Hao Jingban and the Vietnamese artist Thao-Nguyên Phan were all top contenders for the prize, but ultimately the 33-year-old performing artist won the hearts of the judges and the coveted award. As for the other contestants, they will have the privilege of exhibiting their works alongside her until January 5th, 2020, in a room at the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM).
Though Jocsons win may come as a suprise to traditionalists, her innovative presence in the competition made Jocson a sure standout amongst her competition. Virtually honing an unclassifiable talent: she comes from a classical ballet background but received training in the visual arts. She says she is a dancer and as much a choreographer as a performer. Her obsession? Bodies in movement and their representations in places where they are subjected to severe tests, from pole-dancing to the work of an airplane cabin crew. When she scrutinises bodies and skilfully represents them on stage, it is to question them, to work through questions of identity, gender, power relations, and the quests for the perfect body, the objects of unrestrained desire and consumption. In her work we have a small glimpse of the societal turmoil in the Philippines...perhaps some were even shocked by the choreography that she presented in Paris, “Machos dancers”, a tribute to men who indulge in erotic shows for other men; attired in waders and mini shorts, in her performance she re-appropriates the codes of male eros.
At the award ceremony, her choice of work proved to exhibit a new level of provocation for even museum staff as Larys Frogier, the director of RAM preferred not to go into too much detail on her work. He stated “her work represents one of the most significant and successful contemporary visual creations, brilliantly combining media, such as performance, video and sound,” he admitted. With a new decade and age of art mid-quarantine, this trans-genre artist is giving the world of fashion a promising future.