a black and white artwork depicting a turtle, and including lined paper, text, paint drips, the words "NEW WORLD 89", and the letter "N"

Carl Beam: Pieces of a Puzzle

Dates September 14.2023

Moving across genres including sculpture, painting, ceramics, printmaking, installation, and assemblage, Manitoulin Island-based multimedia artist Carl Beam created an extremely potent and influential body of work. Formally and conceptually proficient, he produced works that probed the interstices of world history, politics, science, and materiality, as well as Indigeneity. This exhibition, which draws on holdings from the Art Gallery of Guelph’s permanent collection, focuses on prints and paintings by Beam that illustrate not only his skill in both, but how his capacity for composition was able to confound and elucidate our ability to make meaning.

Image detail: Carl Beam, New World, 1990, photo-etching. Gift of Marion Oxley, 2006. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection