Ian Carr-Harris creates work that challenges our understanding of what we know by drawing attention to the social construction of history. His study of modern history and library science shaped his critical approach to art making. In The Anchor Bible, Carr-Harris uses the story of Judith and Holofernes, a dramatic account of deception and heroic subterfuge depicted in painting throughout history, to highlight the connection between text and image, and to invite the viewer to re-evaluate the meaning of a culturally entrenched story. Carr-Harris offers two renditions or accounts of the story: the gruesome head of Holofernes and a back-lit text are staged on adjacent tables. The Anchor Bible or Apocrypha consists of fifteen books from the pre-Christian period. Although the legitimacy of these texts has been contested throughout history, the stories within have a sustained cultural presence. The text displayed in this piece is not the Anchor Bible nor the story of Judith, but a compilation of footnotes and fragments of feminist interpretation. Carr-Harris thus investigates the role of text in the production of histories.

Carr-Harris is a senior Canadian artist whose work was included at the Venice Biennale in 1984, and the Canadian Biennial of Contemporary Art in 1989. He has been an influential teacher of aesthetic theory and sculptural installation at Toronto’s Ontario College of Art and Design.