Carole Bernice Conde

On July 19, 2024, Carole Condé –artist and activist; life-long partner and creative collaborator of Karl Beveridge; mother and grandmother; dedicated practitioner of labour and community arts and gardener extraordinaire – passed away. She will be deeply missed by Karl, her beloved partner of 58 years; her children Craig and Simara; her grandchildren Travis, Ty, and Rio; and her many friends and admirers. As tributes pour in by email and social media posts, Carole is being remembered for her warmth, her humour, her kindness, and forthrightness. Mischievous, charming, passionate, feisty, loving, loyal, witty, inspirational, and brilliant; these are but a few of the words that friends have used to describe Carole, whose collaborative artistic practice is an enduring testament to her commitment to artmaking as a visual expression of social justice and political advocacy.

Carole was born on June 27, 1940, in Hamilton, Ontario. Her prodigious artistic talent manifested at an early age, yielding first place in drawing contests, including winning two ponies, the second of which she gifted to her brother. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Toronto to attend the Ontario College of Art and had her first solo exhibition at the Pollock Gallery in 1968. While hanging out in the bohemian sanctuary that was Yorkville of the 1960s, she met the love of her life, Karl Beveridge, in 1966. They married a year later and decamped to

New York in 1969, with Carole’s two children from her previous marriage, Craig and Simara, in tow. In the turbulent New York art world of the 1970s, Carole and Karl were central to the emerging conceptual art movement, participating in the Art and Language and Fox collectives, and transforming their individual artistic practices into a shared politicized one. Their now legendary exhibition, It’s Still Privileged Art, held at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1976, deployed large banners, silkscreens, and comic book format to denounce the mainstream capitalist artworld and reveal the depth of their commitment to revolutionary social change.

In 1978, Carole and Karl returned to Toronto and began working with trade unions and community groups to create their signature style of conceptual photography, which combines radical montage with staged sets, props, and actors. Their home at Bathurst and Adelaide, which they transformed from a derelict rooming house into a living-work space, quickly became a hub of cultural organizing and socializing for the progressive arts and trade union communities, with Carole always the gracious and welcoming host. Decades of intensive art-making and community projects followed, with Carole serving as an editor of Fuse Magazine and on the Board of A-Space Gallery; and participating as a founding member of the Independent Artist’s Union, the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, and the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre in Hamilton. Her collaborative artworks, which address labour and social issues ranging from the history of Radio Shack’s first strike and Oshawa’s autoworkers to the erosion of public health care and environmental degradation, have been featured in over fifty solo exhibitions around the globe, and are held in numerous international and national museum and art gallery collections.

Together with Karl Beveridge, Carole Condé has been recognized for her exceptional artistic contributions through receiving the Ontario Federation of Labour‘s Cultural Award in 1997; Honorary Doctorates from OCAD University in 2010 and NSCAD University in 2015; Prix au mérite artistique, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) in 2013; and the Governor General’s Award in the Visual and Media Arts in 2022. More importantly, her unwavering belief in the power of art to make a difference to the lives of working people lives on. Carole’s beautiful being may have departed from this world, but her spirit remains. Her images stand proud and defiant against social and political injustices. Her history as a woman artist of the 1970s and onwards, who forged a radical path for political art by inserting gender issues into representations of labour and representations of labour into cultural issues, is an inspiration for future generations. She is with us always, in the archives, on the museum walls, and in our hearts.

A celebration of her life will take place at a later date.

Dot Tuer, 2024