The Bau-Xi Gallery is highlighting work by Belgian photographer Isabelle Menin, whose lightjet prints, including "The Black Garden," pictured here, have a deceptively painterly ethos.
Art Toronto, Canada’s largest art fair, is blowing apart its old model as it tries to find a silver lining in the pandemic cloud with a digital format that boosts the fair's national reach and regional inclusivity.
Gone is the usual scene – thousands of visitors crammed into the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to view art in cheek-by-jowl booths, a worrying prospect for viral super-spreading as the city's COVID-19 rate spikes amidst the pandemic's vigorous second wave.
Instead, the fair, which runs Oct. 28 to Nov. 8, is focusing on virtual programming that lets viewers check out the action from home, wherever that may be, and make in-person visits to galleries in major cities across the country.
“With this new model we will be directly connecting galleries and artists with new audiences, expanding the opportunity to support the local art scene in communities across the country,” says Art Toronto’s director Mia Nielsen.
While it's a gamble, the fair is likely hoping that people are ready for new distractions after being stuck close to home over the last seven months – and those with disposable income are willing to spend it on art rather than exotic holidays or weekend cottages.
Contemporary galleries in Western Canada – mostly in Vancouver and Calgary – have signed on to the new format.
The Bau-Xi, which has galleries in both Toronto and Vancouver, is featuring six artists at its Toronto venue, including Belgian photographer Isabelle Menin, who is presenting deceptively painterly florals.
Alicia Henry, "Untitled (Woman in a Dress with Red Undertones)," 2019-2020
cotton, thread, dye and felt, 112" x 33"
Meanwhile, Calgary's TrépanierBaer has opted to join a four-gallery pop-up at Toronto's Stephen Bulger Gallery. Owner Yves Trépanier, who thinks people are tired of looking at art online, has shipped works by various artists, including Alicia Henry, Sarah Stevenson and Carroll Taylor Lindoe, to Toronto. In Calgary, he's presenting a solo show by Henry, her first in a private Canadian gallery.
The fair launches with a virtual preview at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Tickets at $30 a head give patrons early access to the digital platform and first dibs on the best work. There'll also be interviews and talks featuring Brendan Fernades, Françoise Sullivan, Shary Boyle and Rajni Perera, along with a DJ set by Toronto artist and Club Quarantine co-founder Casey MQ.
Toronto-area events include virtual talks with artists Christi Belcourt and Bonnie Devine at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and with Curtis Talwst Santiago at the Power Plant.
Art Toronto has also commissioned an augmented reality work by artist Jenn E Norton. The fair promises a work that is "immersive and experimental," saying it reframes familiar objects and scenes as dreamlike occurrences.
Regina's Slate Fine Art Gallery features a group show that includes longtime favourites like Victor Cicansky, whose patinated bronze "Apple Bonsai" is pictured here.
The list of participating galleries is long.
Vancouver galleries include the Bau-Xi, Equinox, Fazakas, Gallery Jones, Howard495, Monte Clark, Poïesis Contemporary, Republic, Unit 17 and Wil Aballe Art Projects.
In Calgary, the list includes Jarvis Hall, Masters, TrépanierBaer and VivianeArt. Loch Gallery, with spaces in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary, is also on board, as is Regina’s Slate Fine Art Gallery.
Programming also features on-demand content such as a talk on decolonizing museums moderated by Wanda Nanibush, the curator of Indigenous art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
For information of the fair, go here. ■
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