Toronto Biennial Opens Fourth Edition With 30+ Artists, New Commissions

(MENAFN- USA Art News) The fourth edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) launched on Saturday, featuring the work of more than 30 artists and collectives, including 16 new commissions. The biennial, which will run until December 20, is titled“Things Fall Apart,” drawing inspiration from William Butler Yeats's 1919 poem“The Second Coming” and Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel on British colonialism in Nigeria. It is guided by the central question,“What can we learn from artists who explore rupture as an ontological tool or a way of understanding?”

Under the ongoing leadership of founding executive director Patrizia Libralato, this iteration was curated by Detroit-based curator Allison Glenn. The 12-week citywide exhibition uses the Great Lakes region as a starting point to examine connections to over 20 trade routes, waterways, and journeys across five continents. Glenn noted that she“intentionally expanded upon an inquiry into waterways seeded by the 2019 biennial, which looked specifically at Toronto's geographies, to position the fourth edition as part of a larger organisational conversation and legacy,” she told The Art Newspaper.“This fourth edition roots itself within the contemporary moment, asking what we can learn from artists who see or use rupture as a generative force, whether theoretically or practically.”

Participating artists include Coco Fusco, Kent Monkman, Nanibah Chacon, Raphaël Barontini, Cameron Harvey, and Skawennati. Addressing the 7 million people in the Greater Toronto Area who speak more than 200 different languages, Glenn expressed excitement about the“Extended Footprint” initiative. This program enables partner organizations across North America to present portions of artists' TBA commissions concurrently. Participants in this initiative include the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, the Counterpublic Triennial in St Louis, Allana Clarke's“Amend” garden in Detroit, the Medina Triennial in upstate New York, and Times Square Arts in Manhattan.

Glenn outlined that this edition of TBA consists of three main components: a central exhibition focused on“methodologies of collectivity, sovereignty, reflection and refusal,” a series of performances and artist-led programming that“invites embodied engagement with these practices,” and a“collaboratively curated gathering in the form of a convening.”

The latter is a three-day public gathering scheduled for October 16-18. Conceived by Glenn, it aims to assemble“a polyphonic group of knowledge-holders” such as artists, co-curators, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, scientists, farmers, and musicians. This gathering will be structured around three thematic pillars: arrival by water, grounding, and departure. It will take place at various Toronto venues and feature panels, performances, and shared community meals.

Among the biennial's installations is“A Deathless Potential In Remembrance By You,” by Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu, located at the Sikh Gurdwara in suburban Scarborough. This work embodies the concept of Jivan Mukti, described as“a state of being spiritually liberated while still alive.” The sculpture, crafted from earth from Gurdwara Sri Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab, a site dedicated to Safar-e-Shahadat, or the“journey of martyrdom,” represents a spiritual state achieved through Simran (stillness and deep listening), Seva (selfless service), and Sangat (community).

Another commissioned installation and opening weekend performance is Rebecca Belmore's Gichigami. Belmore's inspiration came during a family visit in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where she observed Lake Superior and a park housing unhoused people. She experienced an epiphany at a landfill where she saw a rare golden eagle land on a pile of trash. This resulted in an installation linking to the Nishnaabeg creation story of a flood that left animals stranded. Belmore stated,“We are in a sea of waste of our own making, and the creation story reminds us that we all need land.” For her performance on Saturday, seven garments adorned with plastic water bottles were worn by performers during a silent march through Queen's Park, then installed at the Art Museum of the University of Toronto, where they will remain throughout the biennial.

French Caribbean poet and artist Julien Creuzet presents a mixed-media work at the University of Toronto Art Centre, channeling Aimé Cesaire's classic négritude text, Cahier d'un retour au pay natal. His work embodies oceanic forces and explores the Afro-Caribbean figure of the red devil, a“fluid, androgynous, untamed entity” prominent in Martinique's carnival culture.

An opening weekend activation,“The Calls,” by Kenyan Canadian artist Brendan Fernandes, invited participants to sail on Lake Ontario. This performance featured a choir of 18 voices accompanied by two dancers as guides, creating a collision of abstract sounds and vocal sirens as the ship traversed the lake. Fernandes explained that the performance“expands upon notions of solidarity while proposing new ways to gather, move and resist in these precarious times,” encapsulating the biennial's focus on waterways and the generative potential of rupture. The Toronto Biennial of Art,“Things Fall Apart,” is on view until December 20 at various locations across Toronto.

We previously reported:

Allison Glenn will curate the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art, which will open on September 26 and expand beyond the Greater Toronto Area for the first time.

Source: The Art Newspaper

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