Karen Kilimnik
1955–

The Hellfire Club episode of the Avengers, created in 1989 for a group exhibition in New York, is an early example of what came to be known as “scatter art,” a loosely defined approach to installation in which artists arranged photographs, found objects, and ephemera in a way that seemed casual. Kilimnik’s title refers to an episode of the popular 1960s British spy drama “The Avengers,” which was about playing practical jokes on politicians as a way to change the course of power and current events. “The Avengers” is a recurring reference in Kilimnik’s work and it embodies many of her key themes and interests: upper- class culture, female glamour, disguises, the eighteenth century, fashion, and the threat of violence. The installation’s prop-like elements together with photocopied images of the actors and other materials evoke those same themes while conjuring the atmosphere of the television show. Kilimnik sets it all to a soundtrack that collages the theme song and other audio from “The Avengers,” eighteenth-century harpsichord music, sixties tunes by the Surfaris and the Rolling Stones, and Arthur Brown’s “Fire.”