Colin Campbell.
Sayej, Nadja
Oakville Galleries | Oakville, Canada
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Once upon a time, Colin Campbell wished upon a star. With
"People Like Us" (through February 22), the Canadian video
artist's largest survey to date since his death in 2001, his
prayers are finally answered. Campbell was one of the founders--along
with one-time partner Lisa Steele, and Clive Robertson, Susan Britton
and Rodney Werden--of Vtape, a pivotal local media arts center. But
given his multiple, gender-bending personas, his long climb to the top
of the catty Toronto art scene must have involved a lot of clawing and
scratching as well.
The show spans Campbell's three-decade journey from his grainy
black-and-white solo days in the 1970s through the digital 1990s. Out of
the over 50 videos that are now extant, there are five features and 22
shorts, two by the doe-eyed Steele. The best work by far is Sackville,
I'm Yours (1972), a 15-minute solo exchange with an imaginary press
corps. Dripping with venom, Campbell says he won't do any more
interviews, that he'll stay in touch, and that he should henceforth
only be known as "Art Star." In his signature deadpan style,
he jokes how he should have his own parking spot at Mount Allison
University in Sackville, New Brunswick.
At the time this video was made, Campbell was a sculpture professor
at the smalltown university. Lore has it, one night he borrowed a video
cam from the gym department (where it was used to record football games)
and made eight shorts that immediately defined him as a video artist. In
many respects, it appears he spent the rest of his time trying to get
back to this original breakthrough. One example of this career in
fullcircle mode is Disheveled Destiny (2000), a 29-minute return to his
"Art Star" character, but this time sporting wrinkles and a
smug beret.
In the 20-minute Hollywood and Vine (1977), the young Campbell
unleashes his inner old hag--channeling a character that morphs Dame
Edna with Joan Rivers. He gloats about rubbing shoulders with movie
stars at the famous Hollywood intersection. "I almost ran over Liza
Minnelli today," he muses, between bouts of caking on eyeliner. The
drama continues in Bad Girls (1980), a chaotic 65-minute romp through
the Cabana Room, a Toronto new wave club. It follows the antics of Robin
and the Robots, a two-piece art rock band whose members lose control,
Britney-style, after a night of sex, drugs, and mayhem.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Another of his no-budget, DIY masterpieces is Dangling By Their
Mouths (1981), documenting an exchange between a European art critic
named Anna (Campbell) and a performance artist (John Greyson) who fauns
over and mirrors her every move. Rather than focusing on the work, the
camera zooms in on the pair's sexually charged moves, as if
that's all it takes to secure coverage in the pages of a glossy art
magazine. The drama continues in Scientist Tapes 1: Atlanta,
Georgia/Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island (1976), in which Steele and
Campbell weave together news stories from the L.A. Times and take turns
spewing out sound bites between bouts of swapping spit.
From the early 1990s onward, Campbell somehow went from being a
snappy Ziggy Stardust type to a washed-out Elton John. The inevitable
coup de grace is Deja vu (1999), an 18-minute color short that shows the
tanned, trendily dressed diva taking us through clips from his 1970s
classics alongside a sampling of newer shots. But with Toronto the
putative Smallville of Hollywood hype and fame, Campbell's
"fall" could never have turned out any differently.
