Art Toronto returns for its 25th edition this autumn. Since 2000, the international art fair has been making connections between audiences and regional, national and international art galleries.
Art Toronto will take place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre North Building in Toronto, Ont. from Oct. 24 until Oct. 27.
This year’s edition has grown to include more than 100 galleries from across Canada and around the world, including France, South Korea, Colombia, Mexico, Germany, Iceland and the United Kingdom.
Rhéanne Chartrand (photo by Paul Eekhoff)
Rhéanne Chartrand is the curator for the 2024 Focus Exhibition at Art Toronto. For the place to which return, the title of this year’s Focus exhibition, she made a deliberate decision to focus on work by IBPOC (Indigenous, Black and People of Colour) artists. She chose not to feature previously spotlighted artists and, instead, worked with galleries to present larger sculptural and installation works that may not otherwise fit in a gallery booth, such as Renée Condo’s Glooscap and Caroline Monnet’s Canopy.
She says that while artworks are for sale, the art fair is “an opportunity to set art in relation around a value or set of values other than marketability-saleability. It’s an opportunity to show how art tells stories.”
Jake Kimble, “When the lights come on, that means it's time to come home,” 2023, archival pigment print, 40" x 40" (courtesy of Art Toronto and United Contemporary
In addition to seeking out works by specific artists, Chartrand also worked closely with gallery owners. The Focus Exhibition has grown from 15 to 16 artists in previous years to 21 this year.
“Sometimes, the selection process was more collaborative, as with Robert Kardosh of Marion Scott Gallery, who I reached to about Inuit wall hangings from Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake),” Chartrand says.
"It turned out that a major component of his booth for this year’s fair would be dedicated to showcasing wall hangings by three generations of Inuit women-makers, and so Robert worked with me to select a wall hanging by Annie Tapiana, another prominent textile artist from the same community.”
Shaheer Zazai, “Carpet No. 5,” 2019, handwoven carpet, wool and natural dyes, 63" x 38" (photo courtesy of Patel Brown, Art Toronto)
Chartrand wrote a poem as her curatorial statement, organized around the the theme of “home, ” a conceptualization that is both multiple and sprawling. Some artworks such as Shaheer Zazai’s Carpet No. 5 or Yen-Chao Lin’s Initiation feature quotidian references one may find in a “home” space, but these works are layered with meanings that resonate beyond the domestic.
Chartrand also highlights connections to land. “Jake Kimble’s When The Lights Come On That Means It's Time To Come Home, while referencing home in the conventional sense in its titling, speaks to me as a visual statement on land and body sovereignty and the power of Indigenous storytelling,” she says.
“In a similar vein, Marigold Santos’ Regrounding explores body/self as environment/landscape, reminding us of our intimate and inextricable connection to Mother Earth: we come from her, and to her we’ll return.”
Does Chartrand have one artwork she’s most excited for the public to experience?
“I’m personally excited to see Anahita Norouzi’s Broken Window materialize in the flesh. We selected it in conversation from a photographic proof and design renderings, as it’s still being fabricated. As such, Broken Window will make its debut at Art Toronto,” she says.
“Stephanie Comaling, Emma Nishimura, and Jan Wade will also present newly completed works as part of the Focus exhibition, so I’m excited to bear witness to how these works are received by the public.”
In addition to these debut works, Art Toronto also offers a packed schedule of talks, curator tours and other programming. ■
Art Toronto is at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre North Building in Toronto from Oct. 24 until Oct. 27
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Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building
255 Front Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 2W6
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