Sin-ying Ho

 By Anthony Merino

Sin-ying Ho dissects the complexity of human identity in two semi-monumental vases: Temptation: Life of Goods No.1 and One World, Many Peoples No. 2 exhibited at Independent Art Projects, North Adams, MA. Across the surfaces of the two vases are human forms in silhouette floating amidst a field of flowers, mimicking traditional blue and white floral patterns found in traditional Chinese porcelain imports. Ho uses the silhouette device to suggest that humans are vessels and within them are their identities.

Renaissance painter Titian’s Fall of Man serves as the template for the figures on Ho’s Temptation. Titian’s painting depicts the moment Eve plucks the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Within the silhouettes are designs inspired by Chinese coins: a circle with a square hole cut in its center. Each circle includes a corporate logo. In the end, Ho asserts that humans largely identify themselves by what they consume. Thus, this work challenges viewers to ask themselves, do you define your purchases or do they define you?

Ho fills the figures in One World, Many Peoples No. 2 with this work’s title rewritten and repeated in 47 different languages. The figures vary in size. While the work is deceivingly simple, it deals with the many ways in which people identify themselves. Most immediately, it explores the paradox of language—a universal experience that separates people. The language we speak in a great many ways defines who we are. More subtly the work explores how we draw meaning out of our own and others’ importance. When looking at figures within art, most people use three criteria to gauge their significance: size, height and placement. Ho confuses us by jumbling our expectations. The smallest figure is placed the highest on the piece, while the larger figures are all overlaid with smaller images. Ho sharply infers a truth: the hierarchies we use to define the world are not only baroque but sometimes contradictory.

Ho’s strength ultimately comes from the way the vases provoke audiences to consider their own identities. They can’t help but relate to the figures, which stir questions: Who are we? How much of our identities are about consumption and how much are about the languages we speak? In the end, though, Ho hopes one question lingers with viewers: How much of our identities are really us?

Independent Art Projects
1315 MASS MoCA Way
North Adams, MA 01247
Through December 2, 2014
independentartprojects.com

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Image Credit: John Polak, Courtesy of Independent Art Projects and Ferrin Contemporary
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Arthur Merino is based in western Massachusetts and has published and lectured about art internationally.