Abstract

Colin Campbell (1942-2001) is widely recognized in the field of video art for his provocative, thoughtful, and wry depictions of sexuality, gender, and social norms and expectations. The creator of more than fifty video works including Hollywood and Vine (1977), Bad Girls (1980), and Dangling by Their Mouths (1981), Campbell was also active in the artist-run centre movement, helping to establish Vtape, Canada’s largest distributor of video art. More Voice-Over: Colin Campbell Writings gathers for the first time a broad selection of Campbell’s writings for video and beyond. Edited and with an introduction by Jon Davies, it includes scripts as well as magazine articles, artists’ books, lectures, short fiction, and excerpts from his two unpublished novels. In these witty and perceptive texts, Campbell considers sexuality and gender, desire and longing, power, history, his own artistic practice and community, artist-run culture, video and its audiences, censorship, the AIDS crisis, and more. Covering three decades, More Voice-Over illuminates Campbell’s development as a central figure in the history of video art as well as the importance of writing to his work and to video as an artistic medium.

Born in Reston, Manitoba, Colin Campbell studied at the University of Manitoba and Claremont Graduate School in California. He began teaching at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, where he made his first video works. He moved to Toronto in the early 1970s where he taught at OCAD University and the University of Toronto. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at documenta 6 and the 39th Venice Biennale, and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the National Gallery of Canada, among other institutions. His videos are distributed by Vtape in Toronto.

Jon Davies is a PhD candidate in art history at Stanford University. He received his BFA at Concordia University. He has held curatorial roles at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Oakville Galleries, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.