"Sue de Beer: The Blue Lenses"

Violence, narcissism, alienation, ennui—these are some of themes De Beer has explored in her macabre films, photographs and sculptural environments. Installed in an viewing room inspired by Islamic art, her latest video, a sort of an Impressionistic, Middle Eastern noir set in Abu Dhabi, revolves around a con artist whose activities are viewed through the eyes of an Arab girl. Both De Beer’s title and theme is borrowed from Daphne du Maurier’s short story about a blind woman whose vision is restored through the surgical implantation of the eponymous blue lenses. Once the bandages are removed, however, she finds to her dismay that everyone she sees has the head of an animal—cow, weasel, snakes, frog, etc. De Beer similarly contemplates the perils of subjectivity and the evidentiary unreliability of one’s own eyes.