Kiss & Tell told stories about lesbian lived experiences through a variety of media, including photography, video, sound, music, and performances. Writing, reading, and publishing were central aspects of their oeuvre as they were greatly inspired by feminist and queer critics and writers. The collective produced a 1991 postcard book that included selected photographs and viewer comments from their Drawing the Line project, as well as a 1994 book of essays, fictional sexy stories, and photographs. In what they describe as a “writers’ group of two,” Persimmon Blackbridge and Lizard Jones each wrote novels that were fictionalized accounts of their experiences with disabilities.
Writings by the Artists
Blackbridge, Persimmon. Sunnybrook: A True Story with Lies. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1996.
Blackbridge, Persimmon. Prozac Highway. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1997.
Blackbridge, Persimmon, and Sheila Gilhooly, Still Sane. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1985.
Jones, Lizard. Two Ends of Sleep: A Novel. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1997.
Kiss & Tell. Drawing the Line: Lesbian Sexual Politics on the Wall. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1991.
Kiss & Tell. Her Tongue on My Theory: Images, Essays and Fantasies. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1994.
Kiss & Tell. “Seizure Story.” In Suggestive Poses: Artists and Critics Respond to Censorship, edited by Lorraine Johnson. Toronto: Gallery TPW and Riverbank Press, 1997.
Kivisild, Emma. “Limoncello.” Northword Magazine (December 2018): 14.
Selected Writings About the Artists
Anderson, Trevor. “Tax-Funded Gay Sex Play God-Awful. Sex Panic!” Gateway, October 18, 1994, 5.
Bell, Rick. “Kiss & Telling in Balmy Banff: Banff Hosts the Latest in Subsidized ‘Alienation’ and Lesbian Porn.” Alberta Report, December 7, 1993.
Belton, Robert. Sights of Resistance: Approaches to Canadian Visual Culture. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001.
Bociurkiw, Marusya. “The Transgressive Camera: Drawing the Line.” Afterimage 16, no. 6 (January 1989): 18.
Boffin, Tessa, and Jean Fraser, eds. Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora Press, 1991.
Bright, Deborah. “Mirrors and Window Shoppers: Lesbians, Photography, and the Politics of Visibility.” In Over Exposed: Essays on Contemporary Photography, edited by Carol Squiers. New York: The New Press, 1999.
“Different Strokes.” Vanguard 17 (November 1988): 46.
Frueh, Joanna, Cassandra L. Langer, and Arlene Raven, eds. New Feminist Criticism: Identity/Art/Action. New York: Icon Editions, 1994.
Harder, Jeff. “Minister Fuming Over Show: Tax-Funded, Gay Sex Play ‘God-Awful.’” Edmonton Sun, January 15, 1993, 24.
Householder, Johanna, and Tanya Mars, eds. Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women. Toronto: YYZ Books, 2004.
Hutchinson, Kristen. “Drawing the Lines of Lesbian Sex.” McGill Daily, February 11, 1993.
Nead, Lynda. The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Noble, Jean Bobby. Drawing the Line: Censorship, Representation, and Lesbian Sexual Politics. Latitude 53 Society of Artists, Edmonton, 1992. Exhibition catalogue.
Pidduck, Julianne. “After 1980: Margins and Mainstreams.” In Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film, by Richard Dyer, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2003.
Pilcher, Alex. A Queer Little History of Art. London: Tate Publishing, 2017.
Pizanias, Caterina. “Habitus: From the Inside Out and the Outside In.” In The Body and Psychology, edited by Henderikus J. Stam. London: Sage Publications, 1998.
Wray, B.J. “Imagining Lesbian Citizenship: A Kiss & Tell Affair.” Torquere: Journal of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association (1999): 25–46.
Selected Critical Writings That Inspired Kiss & Tell
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press, 1970.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1994.
Gablik, Suzi. The Reenchantment of Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 1991.
Godberg, Roselee. Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1979.
Grosz, Elizabeth. Sexual Subversions. Sydney: Allen & Unwin Pty., 1989.
Halberstam, J. Jack and Del LaGrace Volcano. The Drag King Book. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1999.
hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Lauretis, Teresa de (Bad Object-Choices). How Do I Look? Queer Film and Video. Seattle: Bay Press, 1991.
Lippard, Lucy. From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art. New York: Dutton, 1976.
Minh-ha, Trinh T. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1989.
Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York; London: Routledge, 1993.
Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974–1977. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.
Rich, Adrienne. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Silverman, Kaja. The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1988.
Sontag, Susan. Styles of Radical Will. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Wittig, Monique. The Lesbian Body. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1975.
Wittig, Monique. Les Guérillères. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.
Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Selected Critical Writings
Ashburn, Elizabeth. Lesbian Art: An Encounter with Power. Sydney: Craftsman House, 1996.
Bell, Laurie, ed. Good Girls/Bad Girls: Feminists and Sex Trade Workers Face to Face. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1987.
Califia, Pat. Sapphistry: The Book of Lesbian Sexuality. Naida Press, Inc., 1988.
Califia, Pat, and Janine Fuller. Forbidden Passages: Writings Banned in Canada. Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1995.
Canyon, Brice, ed. Live at the End of the Century: Aspects of Performance Art in Vancouver. Vancouver: Grunt Gallery, 2000.
Cvetkovich, Ann. An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003.
Duell, Sara. “Lesbian Invisibility in Art History: An interview with art historian Ksenia M. Soboleva discussing lesbian invisibility, being a grumpy dyke, and the value of criticism.” WMN: Lesbian Art and Poetry, August 2, 2020. https://www.wmnzine.com/ksenia-soboleva-lesbian-invisibility-in-art-history/.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Ferguson, Ann. “Sex War: The Debate Between Radical and Libertarian Feminists.” Signs 10, no. 1 (Autumn 1984): 106–12.
Foster, Thomas, Carol Siegel, and Ellen E. Berry, eds. The Gay ‘90s: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Formations in Queer Studies, New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Francis, Margot. “Lesbian National Parks and Services: Sex, Race and the Nation of Artistic Performance.” Canadian Woman Studies, 20, no. 2 (2000): 131–36.
Fuller, Janine, and Stuart Blackley. Restricted Entry: Censorship on Trial. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1995.
Gilbert, Sylvie, ed. Arousing Sensation: A Case Study of Controversy Surrounding Art and the Erotic. Banff: Banff Centre Press, 1999.
Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. New York: Rizzoli, 2000.
Jennex, Craig, and Nisha Eswaran. Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada. Toronto: The ArQuives, 2020.
Karaian, Lara. “Troubling the Definition of Pornography: Little Sisters, a New Defining Moment in Feminists’ Engagement with the Law?” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 17, no. 1 (2005): 117–33.
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
Korinek, Valerie J. Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930–1985. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
Kumbler, Alana. Ephemeral Material: Queering the Archive. Sacramento: Litwin Books, 2014.
Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights 1945–1990. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992.
McCaw, Fiona, Kristen Hutchinson, and Susan Vivian. “The joy of naughty bits.” McGill Daily, February 17, 1992, 4.
Millward, Liz. Making a Scene: Lesbians and Community Across Canada, 1964–84. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015.
Munt, Sally R. Heroic Desire: Lesbian Identity and Cultural Space. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Radbord, Joanna. “Lesbian Mothers and the Law of Custody, Access and Child Support.” Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 1, no. 2 (1999): 86–96.
Rubin, Gayle S. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” In Social Perspectives in Lesbian and Gay Studies, edited by Peter M. Nardi and Beth E. Schneider, 143–78. New York City: Routledge, 1998.
Samois, eds. Coming to Power: Writing and Graphics on Lesbian S/M, Alyson Books, 1981.
Stein, Arlene, ed. Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: beyond the lesbian nation. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
Valverde, Mariana. Sex, Power and Pleasure. Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1985.
Wark, Jayne. Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art in North America. Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006.
Warner, Michael, ed. Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Zepeda, Lizbeth. “Queering the Archive: Transforming the Archival Process.” disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory 27 (July 2018): 94–101.
Resources
Archives lesbiennes du Québec, Montreal
The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives, Toronto
Artexte Information Centre, Montreal
B.C. Gay and Lesbian Archives, City of Vancouver Archives
Kiss & Tell Archive, Simon Fraser University Special Collections and Rare Books, Burnaby
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn
Sexual Representation Collection, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto
About the Author
More Online Art Books
Acknowledgements