Past Exhibitions

James Carl: do you know what

November 22, 2008 - January 25, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday November 22, 3:00 - 6:00 pm

James Carl, thing's end (polymer clay, dimensions variable) 2008

do you know what the first major survey of works by Toronto-based artist James Carl, is presented jointly by the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (University of Toronto, November 22, 2008 - January 24, 2009), the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (Guelph, January 17 - March 22, 2009) and the Cambridge Galleries (Cambridge, January 17 - March 1, 2009). Each of the three venues will focus on particular aspects of Carl's sculptural and graphic production from 1990 to the present, highlighting the artist's preoccupation with the normal, the moral, and the all-too-common.

Born in Montreal in 1960, James Carl moved to Toronto after studying in the University of Victoria (B.C.), McGill University (Montreal), Rutgers (New Jersey) and the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. He quickly came to attention with an ambitious series of one-to-one scale cardboard replicas of consumer and household appliances: washing machines, stoves, and television sets, among others. Since then, Carl's interest in replicating objects from the flow of consumer culture has come to involve carving white marble into disposable Styrofoam fast-food containers and cutting and folding coroplast hand tools, car tires, and even office furnishings. Materials made for one-time purposes (such as packaging) represent seemingly long-lasting material goods, while materials associated with permanence and enduring value come to represent the fleeting impermanence of instantaneously disposed stuff. Carl's works remark on material culture, but resist commentary in favor of confronting the viewer with starkly factual presentations of sculptural objects or graphic equivalents.

James Carl's work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Europe and Asia. He presents a solo exhibition of new works at Diaz Contemporary (Toronto) from November 22, 2008 to January 17, 2009.

Events: Sculpture Toronto, panel discussion
Monday, December 1, 2008
6pm, South Dining Room, Hart House, University of Toronto

This panel discussion, organized by Adjunct Curator of Outreach at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, brings together several emerging Toronto-based artists including Jen Hutton, Karen Kraven, and Kristiina Lahde, among others, to address current thematic and methodological concerns in Toronto sculpture practices. The discussion will examine the role of influence in pedagogy, to speculate the certain extent faculty and senior artists impart certain aesthetic and methodological programs that continue or are contested in the work of younger generations.

The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

REVIEWS

Murray Whyte: "James Carl: Turning Trash into Treasure". The Toronto Star. Nov 27, 2008

 

Dan Adler: "James Carl". Artforum. PP 202, February 2009

 

Sarah Milroy: "Getting Under the Skin of Things". The Globe & Mail. January 10, 2009