Lisa Steele
Lisa Steele studied Literature at the University of Missouri before immigrating to Canada in 1968. Steele's videotapes have been extensively exhibited nationally and internationally including: the Venice Biennale (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. She is a founding director of V tape, a national information and distribution service for independent video, a founding publisher and editor of FUSE magazine, has been involved in the anti-censorship movement since 1980, is the past president of the Independent Film and Video Alliance / Alliance de la Video du Cinema Independant, a national lobbying organization for film and video, a founding member of the Independent Artists Union (Toronto), active in the Women's Cultural Building Collective (1980-84), on the Board of directors of A Space Gallery (1984-86, 1989-92), past chair of the New Media Program at the Ontario College of Art where she has taught video since 1981.
Steele served for three years on the Advisory panel for Visual Arts at the Canada Council and served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1993-97. Steele has published numerous articles, catalogue essays and in 1996, she co-edited (with Peggy Gale) the book VIDEO re/VIEW: the (Best) Source For Critical Writings On Canadian Artists' Video, published by Art Metropole and V tape.
Since 1983, Kim Tomczak and Steele have worked exclusively in collaboration with each other, producing videotapes, performances and photo/text works. 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 prestigious 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 most recent work The Blood Records received a world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Cite this record
"Lisa Steele." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/lisa-steele.
Download RIS citationSummary
Lisa Steele studied Literature at the University of Missouri and immigrated to Canada in 1968; her videotapes were shown internationally, including the Venice Biennale (1980) and Museum of Modern Art (NYC). She co-founded V tape and FUSE, engaged in anti-censorship from 1980, chaired the New Media Program at the Ontario College of Art and taught video from 1981, and served on the Art Gallery of Ontario Board of Trustees (1993–97). Since 1983 she has collaborated with Kim Tomczak on videotapes, performances and photo/text works; they were surveyed at the AGO (1989–90), won the Bell Canada Award and a Toronto Arts Award in 1993, and premiered The Blood Records at MoMA in 1996.
Submit a change or correction
Last modified 18 June 2011