Carl Beam

Carl Beam was born in M’Chigeeng (West Bay) on Manitoulin Island in 1943.

Carl Beam was an Ojibway artist classically trained in the European tradition. His work, executed in diverse media, such as drawing, watercolor, etching, non-silver photography, photo emulsion, installation, and ceramics, is highly different from the Woodlands School of Art, though it represents a continuation of the themes explored by its artists. Often juxtaposing western empirical thought with subjective personalized experience and Native tropes, Carl Beam’s work is politically charged and highly provocative. Early influences during Beam’s formal studies included Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and especially Robert Rauschenberg. The latter’s influence is evident in Beam’s frequent use of photo transfer and photo emulsion in his works on paper, similar to the “found” images from print media in Rauschenberg’s innovative lithographs and other graphic media. Beam was particularly fond of repeating icons like Christopher Columbus and Sitting Bull, using animals and birds and reptiles, as well as self-portraits in various moods.

Beam was part of three group exhibitions in 1989: Beyond History at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC; Indian Art ’89, at the Woodland Indian Cultural/Education Centre, Brantford, ON; In the Shadow of the Sun at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, PQ, and at Dartmund, Germany.

Shortly before his death, Beam was given the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. He was the first Native Canadian to have a contemporary painting, The North American Iceberg, purchased by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON. In the Indigena exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, PQ, 1992, Beam’s very important triptych, Burying the Ruler, incorporated symbols to reveal his strongly political satirizing of “European values and standards as the only ‘ruler’ by which Aboriginal cultures historically have been measured.”

What Carl Beam does is not 'collage' - an artform which is deliberately random - it is 'montage', where images are mounted together in a thought-out process to point out their connections and dissonances.

Carl Beam died in 2005 from complications due to diabetes.

Education

1971, Kootenay School of Art, Kootenay, BC
1974, B.F.A., University of Victoria, Victoria, BC
1975-76, Graduate Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB

Honours

Carl Beam was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts - 2005

Exhibitions

1992, The Colombus Site, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON
1997, Transitions, The Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France
1999, Reconstructing Reason: the Koan of Carl Beam, Carleton University Art Gallery, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON 2000, Works from Novak Graphics, Shanghai, China
2002, The Whale of our Being, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON

Collections

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
Museum of Civilization, Hull, PQ
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, ON
The Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ