Carl Beam: The Poetics of Being

This major retrospective publication confirms Carl Beam (1943-2005) as one of Canada's most important artists. Beam broke new ground throughout his career, notably as the first artist of Native Ancestry (Ojibwe), to have his work purchased by the National Gallery of Canada as Contemporary Art. Working in various mediums - photography, oil, acrylic, text on canvas, stone, cement, wood, ceramics and found objects - Beam explored the tensions between Western and Aboriginal relations. Featuring more than 50 of Beam s most remarkable works from his early career in the 1970s to the end of his production in the early 2000s, this generously illustrated monograph illuminates the artist s investigations into the metaphysical aspects of Western and Indigenous culture, while powerfully illustrating the wide-ranging physicality of his work.