The Mirror

            I know that I have already talked about Orientalism in this blog, but I feel that I have an experience that I need to share. There was one moment in my life where I came face-to-face with Orientalism, but not in the way that many people would assume. It took me years to realize what I had witnessed, but it finally got through to me. Did you know that when a museum curator sets up an exhibit that they are trying to tell a story? This story could mean absolutely anything, from a progression through art to a progression through history. However, at the Freer-Sackler Gallery in Washington DC, the story seems to be hidden. The gallery is dedicated to Asian and Middle-Eastern art, along with paintings from

James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Western dining room dedicated to Asia. It is a mish-mash of parts and pieces, with statues of Hindu gods, scrolls of ancient Chinese calligraphy, and pottery from various places. If anything, it was a place for everything but modern art. Yet, that is what I found within the museum. The modern art was in the form of a mirror, a sculpture really. Even now I can remember how I found this mirror.

To reach this mirror I had to first enter the building, walk up the stairs, and then find my way around the halls. When I found the staircase, with its large painting of a woman in Western dress, I would have to go down, down, down. Three stories down, in the depths of the earth, I found myself in a narrow hallway. Past the pots and statues of Indian gods I would find myself in an even bigger gallery. Bypassing the exhibits of silkscreen paintings and imperial Russian finery I would then move out into the light, where a chandelier made up of Sanskrit writings hung from the ceiling. I would climb the three stories back up on the stairs beneath the twisting letters, into a hallway full of nothing but windows. And in this hallway there was the mirror. On my journey there I had to bypass both the West and East, explore the depths of a building, and emerge on the line where the East and West melted together. To get to this mirror I had to care, I had to want to understand, and have the curiosity to go deeper.

            This mirror was strange to say the least, merely a reflective surface. It was bent, twisted, and curved. A massive structure, it covered the hall, twisting in a way that it hid everyone from view that was not standing directly at your side. There were inlets where you could walk into it, and hear your voice echo back at you. The reflective surface distorted your image. Your face would be somewhere near the bottom of the sculpture while your feet walked around on the top. Yet this mirror was not useless. If you went close to the sculpture, very close by walking into the inlets, you would be able to see your eyes, clear and undistorted on its surface. When you were this close to the surface you could not see anything or anyone but yourself, your own eyes that stared back at you. At the time I did not realize that it was all that mattered. This memory was left to stir three years later while sitting in the middle of a class based around Orientalism itself.

            I believe that the mirror’s message, the story that the curator of the museum wanted to say, was that there is no difference between East and West. When you look at the East from a distance everything looks twisted and distorted, the world is flipped upside down and you have no idea what to look at. Two times I went to the museum to see this mirror, and it was only the second time that I actually realized that my eyes could be reflected off of it. The first time the mirror was a mystery to me, something to look at from a distance but not to get too close to. Yet when you got close to the mirror, when you actually start to look at the East, you see that there is absolutely nothing strange or twisted about it. If anything it does not mark what is different about the West, but what is exactly the same. And so, from a distance, I believe that this mirror represents Orientalism, and the twisted way that the world can view it. It is only when you get close enough, when you want to know more and to understand, can you even realize that the Orient, the way you saw things before, does not exist. That mirror defined, in its own essence, understanding.

(Sadly, to my knowledge this mirror is no longer at the Freer-Sackler gallery. I went to the gallery three times over a period of two years. On the second year, my third visit, the hall that held the mirror was empty. I do not know the name of the piece, the artist, or where the mirror was relocated too. But hopefully, from reading this, if you ever come across it you will know exactly what it is. I dare you to get close enough to see your eyes.)