Art Toronto returns to the Metro Convention Center and you don’t want to miss it
With a newly redesigned floor plan, world-class online programming and more than a third of galleries featuring work by First Nations, Inuit and Métis artists, ArtTO is reinventing Canadian art
Canada’s art fair, ArtTO, returns to the Metro Convention Center from October 29 to 31, marking the first major art event from coast to coast since the pandemic. With over 60 galleries from around the world, a brand new floor plan including an impressive sculpture garden, world-class online programming and hundreds of works of art for sale, the 22nd annual fair is revived. In addition to the in-person fair, collectors can virtually visit Art Toronto via a new online platform powered by Artland from October 29 to November 7. The hybrid model allows visitors from all over to explore the best works in Canada.
Art Toronto, presented by RBC, has a strong history of showcasing some of Canada’s top premier artists and this year galleries are putting Indigenous artists front and center. With more than 30% of works by Indigenous artists and ⅓ of galleries featuring Indigenous works, including five galleries entirely dedicated to First Nations artists, the market suggests that a new wave of artists is here.
Here are our top artists to discover in person and online.
Jason Baerg
Fazakas will present Oyasiwewina, The Law (2021), a cutout canvas suspended from a stepladder to suggest a teepee, by Two-Spirit Métis Cree artist Jason Baerg. Baerg will also participate in a “Decolonizing Museums and Collections” panel alongside Dr. Patricia Marroquin Norby, Curator of Native American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as part of the fair’s lecture program.
Chef Beau Dick
Ceremonial / Art will feature chef Beau Dick’s sculpture Pookmis (2002), a sculpted mask made from red cedar, acrylic, horsehair, feathers and cotton. The artist and activist died in 2017.
Caroline Monnet
Division Blouin will present the multidisciplinary Algonquin artist Caroline Monnet. Monnet recently launched his first feature film, Bootlegger, last October after showing his first solo exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts last spring.
Rebecca Belmore
Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore’s work in performance, installation, photography and video addresses the politics of representation. His images of provocation, subtle intervention and resistance are rooted in the tragic history of Indigenous cultures in North America.
Maria hupfield
Anishinaabe transdisciplinary artist, Maria Hupfield is the first Borderlands Fellow 2020-22 for her Breaking Protocol project at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School of New York and at the Center for the Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University, Temple. Hupfield received the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award in 2018.
The online program will include a panel discussion in anticipation of the opening of the New Museum’s fifth triennial, “Soft Water Hard Stone,” in New York City on October 28. The new museum’s curator, Margot Norton, will discuss the exhibition with participating Canadian artists Nadia Belerique, Laurie Kang and Jeneen Frei Njootli.
The “As We Rise” exhibition will also take place online, which will feature 100 photographs by black artists from around the world. The works are from The Wedge Collection, which was created by dentist Dr. Kenneth Montague in 1997.
Click on here to book tickets to explore the Art Toronto Fair in person and online from October 29 to November 7.
In partnership with Metro Convention Center, Art Toronto will implement all applicable COVID-19 safety procedures recommended by the province of Ontario, including following the province’s vaccination passport system, timed entry, mandatory masks , wider aisles to accommodate social distancing, digital ticketing, and a carefully coordinated crowd flow. A complete overview of Art Toronto’s health and safety measures is available here.
