Ian Carr-Harris (born 1941) is a Canadian artist living in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. In addition to exhibiting internationally, Carr-Harris is a professor at the

Ontario College of Art and Design Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD U, is a public art university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its main campus is located within Toronto's Grange Park and Entertainment District neighbourhoods ...

Life

Ian Carr-Harris was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1941. He is an artist, writer and educator. Major solo exhibitions of his work have taken place across Canada and abroad. His writings on art have been published in ''Canadian Art'', ''Parachute'', ''C Magazine'' and ''Vanguard'', among others. Carr-Harris has been on the faculty of the Ontario College of Art & Design since 1964. He has received several grants from the

Ontario Arts Council The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by O ...

and the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...

, and is currently represented by the Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto. He has represented Canada at the

Sydney Biennale The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice Biennale, Venice and São Pa ...

(1990),

Documenta Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...

8 (1987) and the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

(1984). Ian Carr-Harris currently lives and works in Toronto, and is on the Board of Directors of the CCCA. In 2002, he received the

Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award is a monetary award given since 1971 by the Canada Council for the Arts to Canadian artists judged to be outstanding in their mid-careers. Since 2005, the award is given to one recipient in each of the follow ...

from the Canada Council. In 2007 he was awarded the

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

in Visual and Media Arts. He is a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria on 16 ...

Work

Primarily a

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and

installation artist Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often cal ...

, Ian Carr-Harris' work investigates knowledge and ordering systems, often working with books and libraries, reflecting his early training and career as a librarian. In particular, his work reflects an interest in the intersections between memory and technology, often outmoded technology, which was a recurrent motif of Canadian art in the 1970s.Cheetham, ''Remembering Post-Modernism: Trends in Recent Canadian Art'', p. 55 Art historian Mark Cheetham describe's Carr-Harris' 1972 installation ''Nancy Higginson, 1949- '' as a key example of work at that time which posits viewers "as forgetful machines who must have

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...

memories

sense of hemselvesas existing over time constantly restored." In ''Nancy Higginson, 1949-'' Carr-Harris

"defines" this woman through a primitive memory system, the card catalogue, a textual archive in which the photo of Higginson seems out of place, dominated as it (and so much of our lives) is by language.

In his work Carr-Harris often uses common materials and objects, such as tables and cabinets, which are "domestic in scale, almost banal in appearance,

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

initially present their information through texts." Typical of his work in the 1970s and 1980s is a matter-of-fact revealing of the basic elements of the work to the viewer. Where the earlier works show the elements of the entire piece as banal, with text as the only key to the overall work, by the 1990s his work begins to use light projections and the 1994 installation ''137 Tecumseth'' is one of several which artificially "re-enact the passage of sunlight through time across a particular space."Monk and Guzman, ''Ian Carr-Harris: Works 1992-2002'', p. 14

References

Notes

External links

Carr-Harris
at

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carr-Harris, Ian 1941 births Living people Canadian sculptors Canadian male sculptors Canadian installation artists Artists from Victoria, British Columbia OCAD University alumni Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Canadian contemporary artists Canadian conceptual artists Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners

Life

Work

References

Notes

Further reading

External links