Background
Carl Beam was born Carl Edward Migwans on May 24, 1943, in M'Chigeeng First Nation to Edward Cooper, an American soldier, and Barbara Migwans. He was raised by his grandparents Dominic and Annie for most of his young life.
Kootenay School of the Arts, 606 Victoria St, Nelson, BC V1L 4K9, Canada
Carl's formal studies of art began at the Kootenay School of Art in British Columbia in 1971.
3800 Finnerty Rd, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada
He transferred to the University of Victoria in 1973.
116 St & 85 Ave, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Beam received his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1976.
Kootenay School of the Arts, 606 Victoria St, Nelson, BC V1L 4K9, Canada
Carl's formal studies of art began at the Kootenay School of Art in British Columbia in 1971.
3800 Finnerty Rd, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada
He transferred to the University of Victoria in 1973.
116 St & 85 Ave, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Beam received his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1976.
1971
1978
1978
1979
1985
1985
2001
Carl Beam was born Carl Edward Migwans on May 24, 1943, in M'Chigeeng First Nation to Edward Cooper, an American soldier, and Barbara Migwans. He was raised by his grandparents Dominic and Annie for most of his young life.
Carl's formal studies of art began at the Kootenay School of Art in British Columbia in 1971, and he transferred to the University of Victoria in 1973. Beam received his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1976. In his training he was influenced by artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg for their collaging of images from popular culture and expressive handling of paint and printing, and Andy Warhol for his use of photo-silkscreen processes.
By the late 1970s, Beam was already working with his signature photo-collages variously using screen process, photo-etching, Polaroid instant prints, and a solvent transfer technique used by American artist Robert Raushenberg. Beam’s use of mixed media allowed him to juxtapose different ideas and images: old photographs of Aboriginal peoples, self-portraits, texts, and drawings. Contain that Force (1978), for instance, has a snapshot of what looks like an Aboriginal chief set on a field of loosely brushed red and pink. To one side is a large bird painted in greys and blacks, and below is scrawled “Note Well: contain any force you might possess, you never know when they’ll be needed.”
In 1980, Beam and his family moved to Arroyo Seco, New Mexico, to live and work. Although Beam had received sophisticated training in ceramics while at the Kootenay School of Art, he regarded himself as a lacking facility in that medium and gave it up. While in New Mexico, however, he was exposed to the 1,000 and more year old bowls created by the Mimbres. Outwardly simple, the bowls contained intricate designs full of turtles, snakes, birds, and spirits playing out mythic scenes. Beam found the Mimbres style bowl amenable to his sensibility. The pottery he created was always hand-made and contained imagery familiar from his other work – ravens, snakes, figures culled from daily news events. Beam and his family returned to Canada in 1983, moving to Peterborough, Ontario.
In 1984, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery commissioned a major work by Beam. The result was Exorcism (1984), an elaborate multi-media work that extends over 6 m in length. Suffused in a fierce, angry red, the piece includes three Aboriginal men dressed in western clothes, someone dressed in traditional clothes, and a huge raven, the surface scored and written over. At the unveiling of the work to the public, Beam had archers shoot arrows at the painting from across the gallery and axes were embedded in its surface. The evident violence of Exorcism is directed toward exorcizing the enduring impact of European colonization on Aboriginal life and culture.
Exorcism was included in a solo exhibition in 1984, Altered Egos: The Multimedia Work of Carl Beam, organized and circulated by the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Another closely related work from this period is The North American Iceberg (1985), which in 1986 became the first work of contemporary Aboriginal art to be purchased by the National Gallery of Canada. Like Exorcism, North American Iceberg, which is executed on a large sheet of plexiglass, is splattered with bleeding red paint over old archival images of Aboriginal people, self-portraits, and texts, one of which reads “ignored, the force moved unsung it is so real, into the real it knows flash to light.” The North American Iceberg is an angry and defiant work, but the “force” the text speaks of points to the inevitability of justice and the ultimate redemption of Aboriginal culture from the depredations of colonialism.
Between 1989 and 1992, Beam created a body of work titled The Columbus Project, raising a wide variety of issues surrounding the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. Gan Dancers (1991) is a photo emulsion of a hooded, shirtless man standing in front of a cross set in a wooden cabinet. Below him are images of birds. The image suggests the degree to which Aboriginal peoples were persecuted by the Christianity Columbus brought with him, and also the pristineness of the natural world prior to the arrival of European culture. The print Columbus Chronicles (1992) juxtaposes an image of Columbus with that of Sitting Bull, an American five dollar bill between them, all of it half erased by splashes of streaming white. The Columbus Project was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Peterborough and The Power Plant in Toronto as well as internationally.
Beam started the 21st century with a body of work he called The Whale of Our Being, examining what he regarded as the spiritual emptiness of modern society and our inability to live in harmony with the natural world. The series included photo emulsion works, sculptural constructions, works on paper, and ceramics. The photo emulsion Summa (2002), for instance, contrasts brightly colored images of Aboriginal people with images from the moon landing and of Albert Einstein, suggesting the degree to which modern technology has distanced us from the natural world. The project Beam was working on at the time of his death was Crossroads, its title taken from a song of the same name by legendary American blues musician Robert Johnson. These works combine a variety of images from that of Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan to Aboriginal leaders, television personalities, and animals.
Beam died on July 30, 2005, in his home on M'chigeeng Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario from complications due to diabetes.
Carl Beam, one of Canada's most influential and significant visual artists, earned a reputation for being fearless, visionary and ultimately, unforgettable. He brought to attention problems that affect contemporary Native cultures and showed, through his juxtaposition of images, how these concerns relate to larger world issues. Through his work Beam integrated personal memory with issues related to the environment, brutality, and a rethinking of the ways histories are told.
Geronimo no. 1
1985Geronimo no. 2
1985KEITH, BARBARA, CELINE, CHER
Nature studies
Nature studies
Nature studies
Nature studies
Nature studies
Nature studies
Nature studies
Red Head
2001Sitting Bull
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Time
Untitled
1971Untitled (Ancestors)
1978Untitled (S b)
1979Untitled
Zero gravity
UNTITLED (EAGLE/SITTING BULL)
1978Beam married his first wife in the early 1960s. They had five children, Clint, Veronica, Leila, Carl Jr., and Jennifer. The marriage was later annulled. Beam married Ann Elena Weatherby, and their daughter is Anong Migwans Beam.
