Cold War spies, nineteenth-century Arctic explorers, submarine camouflage and a 1980s experimental synthesizer band come together in unusual and intriguing ways in Katie Bethune-Leamen\u2019s first solo exhibition at MKG127. Titled \u201cDazzle Shizzle,\u201d the show furthers the artist\u2019s ongoing interest in mining the intersections of language, pop culture and \u00advisuality in encoding and decoding experience: a preoccupation exemplified most recently in Bethune-Leamen\u2019s 2009 Nuit Blanche performance Ghost Chorus: A Dirge for Dead Slang<\/em> and earlier curatorial project \u201cThe Way I Are,\u201d which put forth verbal slang as a metaphor for conceptual slippages in \u00adcontemporary art. <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Though it takes a great deal of research to fully appreciate the nuances of Bethune-Leamen\u2019s historical references, \u201cDazzle Shizzle\u201d also rewards the casual viewer with a wealth of visual sensations that invite close inspection and careful consideration. In the gallery\u2019s front window, a giant, iridescent and scored sculpture that seems half-meteor, half-iceberg glimmers in teal, silver and pink shades atop a Plexiglas stand embossed with the title Really, It\u2019s A Lot Bigger, A Lot Heavier, And A Lot Darker<\/em> (2010). Just what \u201cIt\u201d is is unclear, but on an adjacent wall, six paintings based on various permutations of an album cover designed by Peter Saville for the British band OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) declare themselves more openly. Reminiscent of Piet Mondrian\u2019s geometric compositions, the covers also bring to mind the use of \u201cdazzle camouflage\u201d on World War I era submarines, meant to confuse enemy ships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three looping videos displayed opposite the paintings begin to illuminate Bethune-Leamen\u2019s conceptual connections. In the first, Robert E. Peary First Sees Ahnighito<\/em> (2010), an actor wearing a fur parka and rather unconvincing facial hair plays the explorer who recovered the Cape York meteorite from Greenland in 1894. Depicting the moment of his discovery, the video shows Peary\u2019s looks of surprise and bewilderment as Ahnighito, the meteor-iceberg from the window, hovers above the icy terrain, \u00adconstantly changing colours. On a monitor next to Peary, the SS OMD<\/em>\u2009\u2014\u2009a submarine covered in Saville\u2019s designs\u2009\u2014\u2009silently drifts across an arctic seascape, while on the final monitor, a fluorescent green ghost floats in black space in a Study for the Office of Dead Slang<\/em> (2010). Nearby, on five glow-in-the-dark plinths, Bethune-Leamen displays a series of eerie cast metal hoods based on those worn by Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet spy who defected in 1945. Despite the recurring references to hiding and camouflage in the \u00adartist\u2019s works, it becomes clear that Bethune-Leamen is here concerned with the way that forms can work a kind of subterfuge through visual confusion: the way that objects\u2019 surfeit of visuality can paradoxically make them difficult to see. Unlike many overly cerebral, conceptually dense works, however, Bethune-Leamen\u2019s projects are not interested in having us \u201cget\u201d their underlying references, but instead encourage visual speculation and imaginative cognitive connections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MKG127,<\/strong> Toronto
 February 13 \u2013March 13, 2010<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":274427,"template":"","categories":[157,281,131,884],"numeros":[3807],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[335],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[934],"artistes":[7503],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-274428","1":"compte-rendu","2":"type-compte-rendu","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","5":"hentry","6":"category-archive","8":"category-compte-rendu","9":"category-reviews","10":"numeros-69-bling-bling-en","11":"statuts-archive","12":"auteurs-gabrielle-moser-en","13":"artistes-katie-bethune-leamen-en"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/274428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=274428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}