Lisa Steele
Encyclopedia
Lisa Steele is a Canadian artist, a pioneer in video art
, educator, curator
and co-founder of V tape in Toronto. Born in the United States, Steele moved to Canada in 1968 and is now a Canadian citizen. She has collaborated exclusively with her partner Kim Tomczak since the early 1980s.
(1980), the Kunsthalle
(Basel), the Museum of Modern Art
(NYC), the National Gallery of Canada
, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), 49th Parallel Videoseries, the Vancouver Art Gallery
and the Long Beach Museum. Her videos are in collections worldwide, including The National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario
, the Museum of Contemporary Art
(Houston, Texas), Ingrid Oppenheim, Concordia University (Montreal), Newcastle Polytechnic (England), Paulo Cardazzo (Milan), the Canadian Embassy (Tokyo) and the Akademie der Kunst (Berlin). She is a founding director of V tape in Toronto, a national information and distribution service for independent video and a founding publisher and editor of FUSE Magazine.
in Visual and Media Arts.
with Kim Tomczak:
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
, educator, curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
and co-founder of V tape in Toronto. Born in the United States, Steele moved to Canada in 1968 and is now a Canadian citizen. She has collaborated exclusively with her partner Kim Tomczak since the early 1980s.
Biography
Lisa Steele was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1947 and immigrated to Canada in 1968. An important pioneer of video art in Canada since the early 1970s, Steele has shown internationally at the Venice BiennaleVenice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
(1980), the Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle is, generally, in German speaking regions a term for a facility mounting temporary art exhibitions. Some are run or supported by a local Kunstverein, an art association of local collectors and artists...
(Basel), the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(NYC), the National Gallery of Canada
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), 49th Parallel Videoseries, the Vancouver Art Gallery
Vancouver Art Gallery
The Vancouver Art Gallery is the fifth-largest art gallery in Canada and the largest in Western Canada. It is located at 750 Hornby Street in Vancouver, British Columbia...
and the Long Beach Museum. Her videos are in collections worldwide, including The National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
, the Museum of Contemporary Art
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
The Contemporary Arts Museum – Houston is a not-for-profit institution in Houston, Texas, dedicated to presenting the contemporary art of our time to the public....
(Houston, Texas), Ingrid Oppenheim, Concordia University (Montreal), Newcastle Polytechnic (England), Paulo Cardazzo (Milan), the Canadian Embassy (Tokyo) and the Akademie der Kunst (Berlin). She is a founding director of V tape in Toronto, a national information and distribution service for independent video and a founding publisher and editor of FUSE Magazine.
Early work
Steele's best known early work Birthday Suit – with scars and defects (1974) is a thirteen-minute black and white video tape where she "presents her naked body to the unblinking gaze of the camera. The tape itself is characterized by common practices of early video art, unedited with a static shot. Steele turns the camera on, walks to the end of the room/set and removes her clothing. She approaches the camera and begins to examine the various scars she's accumulated over her life up to that point. The work represents what critic Dot Tuer indicates is "an offering to the technological gaze [which] downplays the representation of the body as a gendered subject," and as film historian Catherine Russell points out, the work is a "counter-image to the emergent critique of the female body in narrative cinema." Steele's describes the work:On the occasion of my 27th birthday I decided to do a tape that chronicled my passage through time. I have always been clumsy, tripping, dropping, falling with alarming regularity. This tape accepts the extent of the consequences.
Steele and Tomczak
Since the early 1980s Steele has worked exclusively in collaboration with Kim Tomczak. Their individual and collaborative work was the subject of a major survey exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1989-90. In 1993, Steele and Tomczak were recognized with two awards: the Bell Canada Award for excellence in the field of Canadian video art and a Toronto Arts Award (the Peter Herndorf Media Arts Award). In 1996, their work The Blood Records: written and annotated, received a world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Their installation work We're Getting Younger All the Time has been installed in several locations in England, in Venice and was at the Centre d'art Contemporain in Basse-Normandie in November 2002. In 2005 Steele and Tomczak won the Governor General's AwardGovernor General's Award
The Governor General's Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields. The first was conceived in 1937 by Lord Tweedsmuir, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction who created the Governor...
in Visual and Media Arts.
Select Videography
- Birthday Suit - with scars and defects (1974)
- A Very Personal Story (1974)
- The Ballad Of Dan Peoples (1976)
- The Gloria Tapes (1980)
with Kim Tomczak:
- Working The Double Shift (1984)
- Legal Memory (1992)
- The Blood Records: written and annotated (1997)
- We're Getting Younger All The Time (2001)
- Make Love Not War (2003)
- Practicing Death (2003)
- Free Speech (2006)
- Speak City (2009)
Further reading
- Ardenne, Paul. Lisa Steele, Kim Tomczak: Before I Wake. , 2003.
- Ferguson, Bruce. Canada Video: Colin CampbellColin Campbell (artist)Colin Campbell was a pioneer Canadian video artist.-Life:Colin Campbell was born in Reston, Manitoba, 1942. Based in Toronto since 1973, Campbell produced over 45 tapes. He received his BFA from the University of Manitoba and his MFA from Claremont Graduate School, California...
, Pierre Falardeau/Julien Poulin, General IdeaGeneral IdeaGeneral Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994.As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated activities and continues to be a prominent influence on...
, Tom Sherman, Lisa Steele. Ottawa: The Gallery for the Corporation of National Museums of Canada, 1980. - Gale, Peggy and Lisa Steele, eds. Video re/View: The (best) Source Book for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video. Toronto: Art Metropole, 1996.
- Monk, Philip. 4 hours and 38 minutes: Videotapes by Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak. Toronto: Art Gallery of OntarioArt Gallery of OntarioUnder the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
, 1989. - Russell, Catherine. "The Lisa Steele Tapes: Investigation and Vision." North of Everything: English-Canadian Cinema Since 1980. William Beard and Jerry White, eds. Edmonton: University of Alberta, 2002. ISBN 088864390X
- Steele, Lisa and Kim Tomczak. The Blood Records: written and annotated. Oakville: Oakville Galleries, 1999.
- Steele, Lisa. "A Capital Idea: Gendering in the Mass Media." Women Against Censorship. Varda Burstyn. ed. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1985. ISBN 0888944551