Performance artist slurps it up

If he were dressed in a suit and tie, Jordan Essoe could easily pass for a corporate lawyer or Wall Street broker. Instead, he wore nothing and was down on all fours, slurping and spitting “domestic fluids” from three gigantic glass tumblers he’d placed on the concrete floor of an Oakland art gallery.

There was milk on his left, orange juice in the middle and coffee on his right. As graceful and limber as a puma stalking its prey, Essoe glided back and forth, taking in a mouthful of liquid from one tumbler and depositing it in another. After 30 minutes, when the breakfast beverages were similar — but not identical — in color and consistency, he stopped.

“Folie a Famille or We Take it the Same Way,” Essoe’s April 6 performance art piece at Swarm Gallery, reflects the many eclectic offerings at First Fridays, the monthly Art Walk put on by Oakland Art Murmur, a coalition of art and cultural venues.

‘It’s about conformity’

“It’s about conformity within the family unit and the opposing forces of individuality and group delusion,” said Essoe, 33, an East Bay artist whose work has been exhibited internationally and includes sculpture, painting, drawing, video and photography. “The physical analogy enacted by the performance is the failed attempt to make the contents of three unique vessels the same.”

He used only his mouth to mix the liquids, with increasing speed and force. By the end of this chaotic ritual, the juice had curdled the milk, and the floor was wet and messy.

Afterward, spectators sniffed the contents of the glass vessels, which amazed Essoe, and showered him with feedback, largely effusive. He was unfailingly calm, genial and polite. One viewer said the performance reminded him of Starbucks’ Ventissimo drink. Others said they were sickened.

“The sucking and regurgitating were nauseating,” artist Namita Kapoor said. “I bet if he’d done it with a spoon we wouldn’t have felt that way.”

‘Stomach-turning?’

“The most disgusting thing is that it tastes OK,” said Essoe, who once used his semen to make paintings in a project about his vasectomy. “Is the piece actually stomach-turning? If so, I felt it was further evidence that people were really engaging and that it had resonated with them.”

For Svea Lin Soll, owner of Swarm Gallery, “Folie a Famille” was provocative. “It’s an interesting use of materials,” she said. “Jordan always has a lot of layers of concept in his work.”

At the start and end of the performance, he wore a blanket that was a gift from his grandmother. He said he was a little self-conscious about his nakedness until he got going.

“If you dress, you’re wearing a costume,” said the Southern California native, whose parents are both writers. “Costumes are not necessary in performance art. Clothing is always armor. In this piece, nudity was about vulnerability or being a child.”

At the First Friday event this week, Essoe will perform “The Fix” at Swarm. It involves hot wax and gluing objects to the floor.

APatricia Yollin is a freelance writer. sadolphson@sfchronicle.com