News Releases - 2007
John Greyson wins Bell Award in Video Art
Ottawa, October 9, 2007 – The Canada Council for the Arts and Bell announced today that John Greyson is the winner of the 2007 Bell Award in Video Art (formerly the Bell Canada Award in Video Art).
Continuing its tradition of patronage of the arts, Bell provides the Canada Council with an annual gift to fund the Bell Award for outstanding achievement in video art. The $10,000 prize has been awarded annually since 1991 for exceptional contribution by a video artist or artists to the advancement of video art in Canada and to the development of video practices (videotapes, installations or web-based video art). John Greyson joins the ranks of previous winners including Steve Reinke, Chantal duPont, Serge Murphy and Charles Guilbert, Robert Morin and Lorraine Dufour, Paul Wong, Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn, Sara Diamond, Luc Bourdon, Vera Frenkel, General Idea, and Nelson Henricks.
John Greyson was selected by a peer assessment committee made up of these professional video artists: David Clark (Halifax), Jillian Mcdonald (Brooklyn, New York) and Fabrice Montal (Quebec City). He was selected from a list of finalists recommended by a nominating committee consisting of Tim Folkmann (Edmonton), Richard Fung (Toronto) and Serge Murphy (Montréal). Mr. Greyson’s prize presentation will be held at Gladstone Hotel, located at 1214 Queen Street West in Toronto on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 5 p.m.
In awarding the prize to John Greyson, the assessment committee said: “John Greyson is perhaps best known to a general public as a feature film director. He shoots his “film” projects on video with trademark video post-production techniques, thus colonizing the space of cinema with the aesthetics of video. An incisive social and political critic, Mr. Greyson is in fact one of the leaders in the AIDS activist video movement, among others. Mr. Greyson has supported the practice in many ways and he influences many emerging artists.”
John Greyson
John Greyson is a Toronto-based filmmaker, video artist, writer, activist and educator whose productions have won accolades at festivals throughout the world. These include over twenty single-channel tapes and video installations, including The Kipling Trilogy (1984-5), The ADS Epidemic (1987), The Making of Monsters (1991 - Best Canadian Short, Toronto International Film Festival, Best Short Film ‘Teddy’, Berlin Film Festival), Herr (1998), Packin’ (2001), and Fig Trees, a seven-room video ‘opera’ at Oakville Galleries.
His award-winning experimental features (from no-budget digital to 35mm) include: Urinal (1988 – Best Feature ‘Teddy’, Berlin Film Festival); Zero Patience (1993 - Best Canadian Film, Sudbury Film Festival); Lilies (1996 - Best Film Genie, Best Film at festivals in Montreal, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, San Francisco); Un©ut (1997, Honourable Mention, Berlin Film Festival); The Law of Enclosures (2000, Best Actor Genie); and Proteus (2003, co-created with Jack Lewis, Best Actor at Sithenghi Film Festival).
He has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, the Chalmers Foundation, and Telefilm Canada, and was awarded the Toronto Arts Award for Film/Video in 2000. He has been active in various anti-censorship, AIDS, peace and queer activist media projects, including The Olive Project, Deep Dish TV, Blah Blah Blah and AIDS Action Now. Currently president of V/Tape Distribution, he has also been active in the Inside Out Film/Video Festival, the Euclid Theatre, Trinity Square Video, Charles St. Video, and the Beaver Hall Artists Housing Co-op.
Mr. Greyson is assistant professor in York University’s film department. His publications include Urinal and Other Stories (Power Plant/Art Metropole, 1993) and Queer Looks, a critical anthology of gay/lesbian media theory (co-editor, Routledge/Between the Lines, 1993).
General information
The Canada Council for the Arts is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2007. In addition to its principal role of promoting and fostering the arts in Canada, the Canada Council administers and awards prizes and fellowships to over 200 artists and scholars annually in the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural and health sciences, and engineering. Among these are the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, the Killam Prizes, the Killam Research Fellowships, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts.
For more information about these awards, including nomination procedures, contact Janet Riedel Pigott, Acting Director, Endowments and Prizes, at 613‑566‑4414, or 1‑800‑263‑5588, ext. 5041; or Danielle Sarault, Acting Officer, Endowments and Prizes, at 613‑566‑4414, or 1‑800‑263‑5588, ext. 4116.