Curated by Carol Breton
(A presentation of Available Light Screening Collective and SAW Gallery)
Friday March 2, 2001
Club Saw, 67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa, Ontario

The first Colin Campbell video I saw was Hollywood and Vine. It was low tech, black and white and unlike other ‘70s video art I had seen. Campy, ironic, funny and deceptively simple, there were layers of narrative, layers of meaning and a man laying a woman and doing it really well.

Campbell has played countless women’s roles in his videos. In Hollywood and Vine the transforms right before the viewer. But somehow the fact that he is in drag becomes almost irrelevant. The fiction takes over and the characters take on a life of their own, becoming a kind of transgendered species inhabiting Colin Campbell’s video universe.

Tonight’s program focuses on five works from Colin Campbell’s extensive video production, two early tapes from the 1970s and three recent tapes. The recent tapes combine stories and characters from the past by inserting original footage from earlier videos and retelling past histories, altering the past reading and the fictitious narrative.

The first two tapes feature Colin Campbell as Art Star, a “famous artist” living the high life as an art world sensation in Sackville, NB. In the following three tapes he plays the roles of three sisters, Mildred from Hollywood and Vine, Robin from Modern Love and Bad Girls, and a new character, performance artist Colleena.

Program 1
In Sackville, I’m Yours, a quirky, no-frills gem from 1972, Campbell mixes fact and fiction in his portrayal of Art Star, a young artist living and working in Sackville. With tongue firmly in cheek, Campbell is bare-chested Art Star, responding to a series of questions posed by an imperceptible interviewer about the privileges accorded a “famous artist” living in Sackville, New Brunswick.

The second tape, Dishevelled Destiny, was commissioned by the Owens Art Gallery with funding from the Canada Council’s Millennium Arts fund. In this video a nostalgic Art Star returns to Sackville almost thirty years later, surreptitiously attending a screening of his own tape, Sackville, I’m Yours.

Program 2
In Rendez-Vous, a new character is introduced into the Campbell lexicon. She is Colleena, the expatriate performance artists, narrator and divulger of secrets. Colleena says her sister Mildred thinks she dresses too butch. Colleena retorts that Mildred looks like a man in drag.

Déja Vu continues the story of Mildred and Colleena, digging at the past, changing it, twisting it, morphing the story like Colin Campbell morphs into each role. Full of melodrama and a cliff hanger ending.

In the final tape of the evening, Hollywood and Vine, Campbell assembles the Women from Malibu on screen, piece by piece, beginning with his words. His voice is her voice, his/her voice is speaking Mildred’s words even before the transformation has begun. In the end, Mildred, the woman from Malibu, disappears slowly, fading from view, gone forever… or is she.

A warm thanks to Jason and Stefan St. Laurent for designing such a gorgeous postcard.