Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Are You What You Think You Are?

by Kaylynn Lum

March 12, 2014

            Mirrors are supposed to show you what you are, but do they really show you everything? In Fred Wilson’s piece, lago’s Mirror, we see that a mirror is just appearance. What we see is not always who we are or what we want to be. People don’t always look the way they act.

            The piece is based on Shakespeare’s play, Othello. It is intended to show what the character lago has to say about Cyprus. It is mainly trying to portray a line that lago says. He says, “I am not what I am.” He is not the person everyone sees him to be, but rather different. He is the only one that sees himself a certain way, while everyone else sees him in a way other than his own.

            It was a mirror that was painted black. It had flowers and leaves decorating it. There was an oval in the center that was to be the mirror you looked into. It was layered with other mirrors on top of one another. The layers were placed farther down so that you could see into the mirror. It was different shaped mirrors that were overlapping and they all had borders on them. The borders seemed to be different for each one. It was made from Murano glass, plywood, and metal pins. It had a regal sort of feel to it. With the complex designs and elaborate borders and shapes.

            The mirror made you think about what people thought about you or saw in you. What you are preserved to be like in other people’s eyes. If who you think you are is who others think you are. It seems like many people aren’t who they think they are. This goes back to what lago said, “I am not what I am.”