James Carl

James Carl is a Canadian artist with a thirty-year exhibition history in Canada and internationally. His works can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and private collections in Canada, the US, China and Europe. Carl has completed several large-scale public projects, notably in Toronto, Calgary, and in Wuhan, China.

Carl completed a BFA at the University of Victoria in the early 1980’s. At Victoria, he worked primarily under Roland Brener, but was also influenced by Mowry Baden, Susan Scott and Fred Douglas. Carl earned a BA in 1992 from the East Asian Studies program at McGill University, where he studied with Kenneth Dean and Roberto Ong. In 1996, he earned his MFA from Rutgers University, studying with Lauren Ewing, Martha Rosler, and Geoffrey Hendricks.

Carl works in sculpture and drawing, using a variety of materials ranging from carboard to marble, commercial signage to conventional print media. Early sculptural works promoted direct viewer participation and public encounter. More recent works connect to the viewer through their vocabulary of common forms and materials. In Carl’s work “both material and manufacture are enlisted into the economy of meaning” (Barbara Fischer).

James Carl has a long and close affiliation with the Sculpture Department at the Central Academy of Art in Beijing. He studied there in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and has lectured there regularly over the intervening years, most recently leading a master’s class in 2019.

In association with the Sui Jian Guo Foundation, Carl is the co-editor and co-translator of a series of Chinese translations of modern and contemporary Western art historical texts. Among the translations are William Tucker’s Language of Sculpture, Rosalind Krauss’ Passages in Modern Sculpture, Dan Graham’s collected writings, Rock My Religion, and most recently, Formless: A User’s Guide, by Rosalind Krauss and Yves Alain Bois. The latter was published in China in 2021.

Carl has taught at the University of Guelph since 1999. Among his many successful students are: Kelly Jazvac, Derek Sullivan, Zin Taylor, Kristan Horton, James Gardner, Roula Partheniou, Devon Knowles, Peter Gazendam, Tiziana La Melia, Jen Aitken, and Patrick Cruz.

James Carl’s work is represented by TrepanierBaer Gallery, Calgary, and Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto.