Lot 8
James Carl

Lot 8 Details
James Carl
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (COMB), 2015
Archival pigment ink on rag paper
edition 4/5; framed
48 x 20 in — 121.9 x 50.8 cm
Estimate $4,000-$4,500
Realised: $2,850
Additional Images

Provenance:
Courtesy of the artist; TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary; Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.
The Work & Artist Bio
The artist’s intelligent and wry edge has titled this strong graphic image of our vanity, Intellectual Property (comb), 2015. Recalling immediately Vija Celmins’s sculpture, Comb from 1969, in lacquer and epoxy on wood and standing over six feet tall, James Carl’s archival pigment print makes the same point. The more than slightly ridiculous nature of what we value: the primacy of appearance. Signs and symbols aside, the comb is a handsome object, strong as a design element, irreplaceable as a tool, universal in recognition and use. Intellectual Property, (comb), is itself, at a substantial four feet in height, completely everything.
James Carl was born in Montréal in 1960. He received his MFA from Rutgers University and has degrees from McGill University, the University of Victoria and the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. His work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, and private and public collections in Canada, China, the US and Europe. Carl’s recent solo exhibitions include “Conformity” (2023) and “Assembly” (2021) at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; “James Carl: Maintenance” (2020) at TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary; “James Carl: oof” (2020), a survey exhibition at Grounds for Sculpture New Jersey, and major commissions in Calgary (2019), and Wuhan China (2018). He currently resides in Toronto and is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, and TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary. His work has been included in numerous publications including Art Forum, Canadian Art, and The Globe and Mail and has been the subject of reviews and articles in Border Crossings, most recently in a review of his exhibition “Conformity.”
James Carl, Border Crossings Issue 163, 2023
What You See is What You Don't Get: The Art of James Carl, Border Crossings Issue 110, 2009
James Carl, Border Crossings Issue 85, 2003
Nicholas Metivier Gallery
TrépanierBaer Gallery