Karl Beveridge
Van Gogh's Ear, Karl Beveridge, 2025
Van Gogh’s Ear, Karl Beveridge, 2025
On one side you have 30 pieces of silver. Payment for amusing the wealthy. On the other, Van Gogh’s ear. Van Gogh is every artist’s hope and fear. The archetypal starving artist. An exemplar of “Not/For The Money:” the artist, relatively unknown in life, becomes celebrated after death.
The rest are notes on art: the ‘Walking Patron’, a pipe, the $6.2 million Comedian at Sotheby’s, CARFAC, the Independent Artist’s Union (IAU), the Doomsday Clock, Geishas in a Landscape and various tools of the trade.
Notes:
• The ear (reproduced in the image) was grown from the living cells of Lieuwe van Gogh, the great, great grandson of Theo Van Gogh (Vincent’s brother), in 2014, by the artist Diemut Strebe.
• Geishas in a Landscape, 1870’s, by Torakiyo Sato, a Japanese print that appears in Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889.
• Comedian (taped banana) by Maurizio Cattelan, 2019.
The rest are notes on art: the ‘Walking Patron’, a pipe, the $6.2 million Comedian at Sotheby’s, CARFAC, the Independent Artist’s Union (IAU), the Doomsday Clock, Geishas in a Landscape and various tools of the trade.
Notes:
• The ear (reproduced in the image) was grown from the living cells of Lieuwe van Gogh, the great, great grandson of Theo Van Gogh (Vincent’s brother), in 2014, by the artist Diemut Strebe.
• Geishas in a Landscape, 1870’s, by Torakiyo Sato, a Japanese print that appears in Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889.
• Comedian (taped banana) by Maurizio Cattelan, 2019.
Karl Beveridge lives and works in Toronto. He has collaborated with Carol Condé (1940–2023) on staged photographic work for over forty years. Through this work, they have collaborated with a wide breadth of trade unions and community organizations.
Their work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally in both the trade union movement and art galleries and museums. Recently, their work has been included in the following exhibitions: Really Useful Knowledge, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen, Holland; Toronto: Tributes and Tributaries, Art Gallery of Ontario; Public Exposures, jointly held at A Space Gallery, Trinity Square Video, YYZ Artists Outlet, Prefix ICA, and Urban Space, Toronto; and Bienal do Mercusol, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Their work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally in both the trade union movement and art galleries and museums. Recently, their work has been included in the following exhibitions: Really Useful Knowledge, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen, Holland; Toronto: Tributes and Tributaries, Art Gallery of Ontario; Public Exposures, jointly held at A Space Gallery, Trinity Square Video, YYZ Artists Outlet, Prefix ICA, and Urban Space, Toronto; and Bienal do Mercusol, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
