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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Friday December 26, 2008 - 55 Artscene · FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2008 Video: past and future showing at Oakville Galleries By Tina Depko OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF O akville Galleries is celebrating the past and future of video art with two coinciding exhibitions. The work of the late Colin Campbell is featured in an exhibition entitled People Like Us: The Gossip of Colin Campbell at Centennial Square. The creative musings now happening in the medium by artist Gareth Long are on display at Gairloch Gardens in Second, Third, Fourth. The Toronto native takes video art beyond the screen, exploring ways to create something tangible from a medium that is generally considered to be fleeting. Gallery staff are excited about the two exhibitions, according to Marnie Fleming, curator of contemporary art. "It is thrilling to take someone who is taking a medium like video and making it someNIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER thing completely different from television and pairing them with the foremost pioneer AT WATCH: Peggy Lawrence (centre) watches Dangling By Their Mouths during the opening of People Like Us: The Gossip of Colin Campbell at Centennial Square. This show is the first major exhibition of Campbell's work since his death in 2001. The exhibition continues to Feb. 22. of video in Canada," Fleming said. Long was raised in Toronto and completSince graduating from Yale, Long has "Normally, when you watch video, the never get a full narrative, so everything is ed an honours bachelor of arts degree from stayed in the United States. He currently pace and how the images come at hinted at, but never worked out," Long said. the University of Toronto in 2003. He earned calls Brooklyn home. He is working as an you is dictated, so there is a very strict "The action is recognizable enough of a guya master's of fine art degree in sculpture assistant for two artists, including Briton grammar through video or film." girl negotiating in a domestic scene that is from Yale University in 2007. Liam Gillick and Canadian AA Bronson, as very familiar, but everything happens Besides working in the same medium of Gareth Long, well as developing his own works. between and outside of the panels. There's video and hailing from Canada, the connecLong said the Oakville show is a signifi- artist this question of translation and how much tion between Long and Campbell goes one cant breakthrough for his career. can be translated." step further. "It is obviously tougher here (in New prints. While lenticular prints are generally The audience not only interprets, but also Long was actually a student of Campbell's York) than in Toronto because while there based on two images placed overtop one controls the storyline. at the University of Toronto. are more galleries, there's also way more another (think of the two-image stickers in "Normally, when you watch video, the "I had a close relationship to Colin and artists, but I've had a handful of shows," he the Cracker Jack boxes), Long takes approxi- pace and how the images come at you is dicgot into the program by accident because of said. "I'm very grateful to Oakville Galleries." mately 20 to 30 video stills and overlays tated, so there is a very strict grammar a first-year seminar course with him," said Long's exhibition, Second, Third, Fourth, them in a single work. through video or film," Long said. "I always Long, 29. "Through that course, I got to "No one has really used it to try to approx- talk about the lenticular as having a gramcould be considered as three separate entities know Colin and the program, and realized it coming together in one space, unified by a imate video, so I'm the first, as far as I know, mar that is different from video, where it is a was something I could do. I can't draw and to do this," he said. connection to the medium of video. shifting syntax. You can go forward or backcan't paint, so the idea of doing art in uniA series of lenticular prints called And She wards, you can run past it or stop. The idea is "A lot of this show is questions about the versity was completely foreign to me. Colin medium of video," Long said. "It is about the Was tells a story of an encounter between that it is totally modified and up to the viewmade it so I didn't have to take the drawing properties of video, how much it can and and man and woman. The storyline is frag- er, just like reading a book." class, which was a pre-requisite, and if it can't communicate and what happens if you mented, with no clear start and no apparent The second element of Long's exhibition wasn't for that, I may not have ever done this try to make a reproduction of it in another conclusion. is Video Solid, which translates video into a program. After that, I took three more classAs is the norm with contemporary art, tangible state. medium. What can be translated and what es with him. He was not only a facilitator, but interpretation is left up to the viewer. gets lost in translation?" "In the early 2000s, there's a lot of talk also a mentor." "You only get a moment of video, you One element of the show is lenticular See Video page 56