Fairs
Frieze London
2022
Michael Ho
Tryst
Focus sector
Booth H9
Dates_ October 12–16, 2022
Venue_ The Regent’s Park
Frieze Viewing Room, London Edition
Online, October 5–17, 2022
2022
Michael Ho
Tryst
Focus sector
Booth H9
Dates_ October 12–16, 2022
Venue_ The Regent’s Park
Frieze Viewing Room, London Edition
Online, October 5–17, 2022
Gallery Vacancy is pleased to present Michael Ho’s solo project, Tryst, at Frieze London 2022. In this project, Ho examines the concept of Yellow Peril and the prevalent Orientalist ideology centering around the racialized association of Asian identity with innate malice. Through a new group of paintings, the artist departs from the queerness and sexuality of Dr. Fu Manchu, the supervillain character from Sax Rohmer’s novel series, by depicting material objects and theatrical snapshots in a fragmented manner. Tryst challenges the hegemony of Eurocentric narratives and at the same time, reinserts the voice of the artist into the telling of history.
Deriving from his background as an Asian immigrant in the Western context, the artist adopts a specific technique, in which he begins with pushing paint from the verso of the canvas and superimposing images on the recto. Such a laborious process serves as a parallel to Ho’s quest for duality, where elements of cultural mismatch and conflicts of assimilation often convene. With a violet color palette obscuring the concept of time, the paintings construct a fictional space of liminality, problematizing the mythical aspect of history inundated with ambiguity and ambivalence. Throughout the series, the character Dr. Fu Manchu is never fully exhibited yet always present. By revealing the character in a partial manner, the artist alludes to the mystified perception of the racialized idea as truth in contemporary history. In Through the Eyes of a Doubled Other (2022), the portrait of Fu Manchu is disrupted by the rippling water surface, his facial feature illegible. The lack of clarity nods at the ambiguity of Dr. Fu Manchu’s gender representation in popular culture. While the reflective water surface suggests fluidity, it turns into an uncertain site where race intersects with gender and sexuality. The notion of how reality mystifies throughout history is further elucidated in works that deal with material objects, including the jade suit, fingernail guards, and jade necklace. In Like Rained on by Stones of Heaven (2022), the painted subject reflects Dr. Fu Manchu’s interest in collecting ancient artifacts; in the meantime, the artist engages with the myth around the jade suit, whose recent discovery in history served to dismiss the myth. Ho’s presentation seeks to assemble the seemingly polarized perspectives of the East and the West in both material and visual culture. Combing through an iconic array of visual tropes and symbols, the works address a myriad of prevailing problems regarding identity, offering a profoundly personal account to humanize a crudely written history. |
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